


Always On Top

by MegaraNoelle



Series: On Top [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Babies, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Mpreg, On Top series, Thor Is Not Stupid, Tony hates magic, bit of angst, i like angst, loki is not an avenger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 19:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5714062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegaraNoelle/pseuds/MegaraNoelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years on and Tony is falling into happy co-existence with Loki. What could upset the flow of things, other than the regularity of the Avengers? Italy, cherries, costumes, spells gone wrong, Asgardians, and arc reactors. Tony would rather try and get Captain America a girlfriend.</p>
<p>SEQUEL to Come Out On Top</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always On Top

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Sequel to Come Out On Top, you will have to read that one to follow this one. I own original characters, the rest belongs to Marvel.  
> This is also posted on FF.net, and here I've just posted all the chapters into one, since there are already a couple others that follow.

"It's not cheating," Tony protested, phone pressed between his ear and shoulder as slipped his wallet back into his pocket, picking up the small box from the counter of the store he was in. "I think we can all agree that if I tried this on my own, I would burn down the building."

"Well, yes," Pepper sighed over the phone. "It's supposed to be the thought that counts Tony!"

"It took thought on my part to make the call to place the special order," Tony retaliated. "He knows that I can't do stuff like that in the kitchen." Tony walked out of the little store and down the street, slipping his sunglasses down from the top of his head.

"Everyone knows that, Tony," Pepper reminded him. "This isn't just some random day-"

" I know," Tony sighed a little and walked around a large fountain surrounded by tourists in elaborate masks. "Why do you think I came here? I mean seriously, there's no way they could have this in Asgard."

"I'm pretty sure they might have something better." Now Pepper was just giving him a hard time.

"You know, I'm almost back to the albergo, where I have limited time to sweet talk my lover into wearing a ridiculously sexy costume," Tony tucked the small box under his arm as he approached one of the finest hotels in the area. "If you'll excuse me signora, I'm going to continue to enjoy my one year and ten month anniversary in Venice." He dropped the phone into his hand, disconnected the call and slipped it in his pocket.

Tony was feeling rather proud of himself, he had planned this trip for him and Loki all on his own, with no help from Pepper, or anyone else from the team. Granted they probably would have expected him to wait the last two months until April for the full two years, but that didn't fit in with Tony's plans. And Tony liked it when his plans worked.

He had noticed several months ago that Loki had taken an interest in certain books in the library, a one year anniversary gift from Tony. Loki was reading up on the history of Midgardian art, and had taken a particular liking to the art of Italy. Tony walked into the library in the New York mansion one day and saw that Loki was rearranging the entire library, books everywhere but on the shelves.

_"So, I thought I felt an inappropriate amount of magic, and it turns out I was right," Tony looked around the room before slowly walking over piles of books. Loki glanced down at him from his position on the ladder across the room. "Did one of the books say the wrong thing? Do I need to threaten it with the fireplace?"_

_Loki rolled his eyes and turned back to the shelf he was working on, sliding some books back in. "I am merely redistributing the books according to their subjects. I have amassed enough books recently to warrant this change."_

_Tony raised an eyebrow. "Amassed enough books? I probably don't wanna look at my credit card statement this month do I?" Loki shook his head. "So what kind of books did you get?" He reached for one of the books on the table he had made too when suddenly a hand slapped his. He yelped when he saw Loki suddenly standing in front him and stumbled back, tripping on a pile of books and toppling to the ground with several other piles._

_"I do not want you defiling the books with the grease you have on your hands from the workshop," Loki warned him. Tony wheezed when several books fell from the top of a pile and landed on his stomach. "If you must know, I have acquired several more books of the Art of Midgard." Tony glanced over past Loki's legs as he spotted several bags, large bags, sitting by the largest, and best, bookcase._

_"Several?" Tony rubbed a hand over his face, smearing his face with the grease that Loki was trying to keep off of his books. "Next thing you know you're gonna want an art gallery of your own."_

_"Art Gallery?" Loki raised an eyebrow and bent his knees down to look at Tony. "Like a museum, but with just art in it? The originals, not some knock off reproductions?" Tony raised an eyebrow._

_"Tomorrow, I'll take you to one, okay?" Loki smirked then stood back up._

_"That will be acceptable. Now please be careful with the books as you leave, or there shall be no smoothie tonight." Tony grumbled quietly as he tried to get up without touching any books._

_Loki had then started to localize his interests to Italian artist, painters, sculptors, even book makers. (illuminated manuscripts were exquisite Tony was told.) Tony listened to Loki's new favorite artist when he came down to the lab to get what Tony called his 'science fix'. And Tony actually listened to Tony, didn't just tune him out._

_"Caravaggio killed a man over a game of tennis! A game! And you all got mad at me for trying to take over the world," Loki had scoffed._

_"Wait, he lost a game where he hit a ball back and forth?" Tony blinked and looked over at the god._

_"It was a bit different back in the 17th century, but yes," Loki nodded. "He was a violent man when he wanted to be, but used his genius for painting to influence thousands!" Tony smirked a little when he stuck his head under the hood of the car he was working on. "His paintings were dark and he used shadows and light, and even used deceased bodies as models."_

_"He used dead people?" Tony looked back over the edge of the car. "That's just weird."_

_"He was not the only, nor was he the first." Loki went on for another hour talking about the Baroque Italian artist. He then spent another five minutes remanding Tony for his use of an awful joke. ("If It ain't Baroque, don't fix it- Ow!")_

As Tony fished the room key from his pocket he thought of he had perfectly timed out their trip. He needed to be in Venice by the 22nd of February, and he wanted to take Loki to as many art sites in Italy as he could. That mean that a tour of the country was in order. And it if happened to take three weeks, then he had to take the time off. Naples was first, then Rome, and Florence, then with a questioning look to Milano where Tony surprised Loki with driving an hour out to Caravaggio, Italy where the painter was born. Tony drove them out, leaving the jet in Milano, to Verona, then finally to Venice.

Just in time for Carnivale di Venezia. Now he just had to let Loki know that they had a costume fitting later than afternoon.

Tony pushed open the door silently, hoping that Loki was still sleeping. He had slipped out early, leaving a note just in case, to grab his surprise before Pepper had called. The bed was empty but the shower was running and Tony smirked a little. Setting the little white box on the table he locked the door and went towards the bathroom.

As he walked in the bathroom he slipped his jacket off and threw it out the door before closing it. "You left early," Loki's voice called through the shower door. Tony was suddenly upset by the frosted glass door.

"I had to pick something up, very important," he slipped his shirt off and kicked his shoes off. "You aren't almost done in there are you?"

"Not anymore." Tony grinned as he pulled his pants and boxers down in one go. Loki had opened the shower door just a fraction and raised an eyebrow as he leaned his head out the door. "No, I supposed I'll be in here a little longer." Tony slipped in and closed the door again before biting at Loki's lips.

* * *

 

Loki had thrown a towel over Tony's head as he left the bathroom. Tony pulled it off, ruffling his still wet hair and he kicked his jeans out of the way as he followed Loki. "If I didn't know better I'd think that the only reason we came to Italy was so that you could have sex more than usual," Loki commented as he slipped on a pair of Tony's sweats laying on the chair.

"Well, I was hoping I would get some after the surprise trip to Caravaggio," Tony smirked and Loki threw a small pillow at him. He wrapped the towel around his waist as Loki picked up the small white box from before. "Oh, yeah, that's what I went to go get this morning."

Loki raised an eyebrow and opened it, looking inside. He grinned and instantly reached in pulling out a chocolate covered cherry by the stem. Tony watched as Loki instantly wrapped his lips around the small fruit, then even took the stem in his mouth. Tony felt his mouth go dry when after several seconds Loki pulled the stem out, tied in perfect bow.

"When the hell did you learn That!" If they hadn't of just had sex in the shower, Tony would have jumped Loki then.

"You know how talented my tongue can be," Loki smirked and pulled out one more cherry before closing the box.

"Do I ever," Tony mumbled. He glanced at a clock then walked over to the dresser to pull out some clothes. "So you should get dressed, because I have something else planned today. And make sure it's something simple."

Loki watched him. "This would have something to do with all the people dressed so oddly outside, would it?"

"You mean the tourists?" They hadn't run into any impressive Carnivale outfits yet. Tony shivered a little when he felt Loki's breath on his neck.

"Anthony," Loki purred and Tony knew he was in trouble. "You wouldn't be trying to get me to dress up for the Carnevale now would you?" Tony's face flushed.

"What?" Tony's voice didn't crack. "Why would you think that?" He turned to look at Loki and saw the look he was giving the inventor. "Okay, so I may be. But what's so wrong with that? It's going to be a grand time! We get to dress up, and know that none of the Avengers will know!" There was the selling point.

"I supposed I am a little curious as to what you will have picked out for me to wear," Loki murmured and Tony smirked a little.

* * *

 

Tony leaned against a railing overlooking the water twinkling with lights and fireworks as he waited for Loki. He could see couples dancing to music ahead of him as other people in costumes walked around him. He pulled on his red gloves and adjusted the sleeves of his red and yellow jacket. He pulled the jacket closed over his black silk shirt that was tucked into his red pants, with yellow stripes down the sides. He had gone for brown calf length leather boots, and a tri-corn hat lavishly decorated with large colored feathers, trim, and hat pins. It sat nicely over his half mask of gold with red crystals and white paint.

He was aware of someone coming to stand next to him, but they weren't a few inches shorter than him so he knew it wasn't Loki. "Excuse me?" He blinked and turned at the distinctly female, and not italian accented voice. "Do you mind if I stand here while I wait for my partner to arrive? I would rather not wait alone."

Tony blinked a little then nodded as he took in her appearance. She also wore a half mask, this one of dark green with white painted edges and gold glitter that led down and onto her cheeks, her dark hair (it was too dark to tell if it was brown or not) was coiled over her shoulder, strands of crystals and beads woken through the strands. Her dress was gold with a green corset, and a green underskirt, flared with a hoop skirt. The bottom of the skirts and the sleeves of her dress with trimmed gold flecked green crystals.

Were Tony not currently attached to a certain God, this would have been a woman for him.

The band across the way started to play a different song and her suddenly brighter than blue eyes lit up and she looked at Tony. "Will you share a dance with me while we wait?"

"Uh, um, I mean, I'm not sure how- Okay." He blinked when the woman suddenly grabbed his hand and pulled over to the edge of the dancing area. While Tony gave the impression of leading he was merely following her instructions as she taught him the particular dance.

He started to smile and laughed a little when they both stumbled a little towards the end of the song. As it ended though he felt someone press against his back and the woman look over his shoulder and grin. "Ah, there he is now. Darling, what took you so long?"

"I had too much fun watching you," a familiar voice sounded in Tony's ear. His eyes widened a little when a very familiar looking green gloved hand reached over to take the woman's hand from Tony's. "You don't mind if I take this dance, do you Tony?" The woman was spun away from Tony and he quickly whirled around himself. "I think I have a much better idea of how this dance is done." Loki grinned at him.

As he took the woman's hands and started to dance with her, Tony watched them, making sure that it had indeed been Loki. But there was no mistaking it, that was the same outfit he had tried on earlier in the day. A dark green jacket with gold buttons and trim, a cream silk shirt underneath, green pants much like Tony's with gold stripes, and black leather boots instead of brown. His half mask of green with gold crystals and cream painted designs sat underneath a custom hat with horns that curled down into spirals against his ears, instead of up like his battle helmet, adorned with green fabric woven around the horns into diamond patterns, and beads attached to the ends.

"What the hell?" Tony muttered under hi breath as he watched Loki and the woman glide across the dance floor. He slowly went back to his spot against the railings and watched the couple dancing, waiting for them to join him.

It didn't take long until Loki escorted the woman back over to him and grinned, a matching grin on the woman's face. It suddenly clicked when her clue eyes melded into green. "I should have known," Tony pursed his lips in an attempt to not smile at the absurdity of the situation.

"I never did think that Midgardians were too bright," the woman smiled brightly at Tony. "Although I guess changing my appearance and voice slightly didn't help."

"No, darling Hela, it did not," Tony informed her. He took her free hand and bent at the waist, kissing the top of her hand. "You do take after your father though, I'll give you that."

"He does dance much better than you," she smiled sweetly as Loki chuckled and stood next to Tony.

"That's because I don't dance," Tony argued, leaning into Loki's side when he wrapped an arm around Tony's waist.

"Then I shall take my leave, for you have stolen my dance partner." She curtsied slightly and smirked at the two men. "It was ever so nice surprising you Anthony." Hela waved a hand and she disappeared.

"Here I thought this trip was all about me surprising you," Tony looked up at Loki.

"And let you have all the fun? I think not," he kissed Tony's cheek. Tony had opened his mouth to say something when he was interrupted by screaming across the water, and a show of lights as dozens of fireworks were suddenly set off on the ground, not making it to the air. The two men would have written it off as an accident, if they hadn't of both felt the pulse of magic that lingered in the air.

Tony took off running first, with Loki right behind him, and they pushed their way across the bridge through the people running the other way. Loki pulled Tony back when a stray firework shot past him. When he looked over Tony saw a man in a plain black mask standing not too far away from the fireworks, just watching, and knew that this man would have some answers.

"You stop the fireworks," Tony pointed in a direction and took off running again before Loki could argue. Ducking a few more stray fireworks Tony reached the man and slowed to a walk. "Seems a little odd that you aren't running away like everyone else," Tony started, stopping a few feet away from the man.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of an Avenger showing up?" The man voice was deep and Tony didn't like that the mask covered the mans entire face. He liked being able to read emotions.

"You caused trouble, during my trip. I got this plan thing going on," Tony moved his hands as he spoke, starting to move closer to the man. "And you're throwing a kink into my plans. I don't appreciate it." He heard the man snort and his hand suddenly lashed out, grabbing onto Tony's wrist. Tony felt the breath leave his body when he suddenly found himself on his back.

Blinking Tony suddenly pushed himself to the side when the man's fist came down towards him. The concrete cracked under his fist and Tony stared at the dent with slightly wide eyes. "Well, shit." He suddenly wasn't feeling too confident but quickly pushed himself up. The man smirked at him as they both adopted a fighting stance.

The man was clearly a trained fighter as he was able to avoid or counter all of Tony's moves. Tony prided himself on not taking too many hits himself, until the man landed a fist to his gut. He gasped and his hands flew to his stomach. The man had grabbed Tony's shoulders before he fell to the ground. He could feel that Loki was nearby, could feel the god working a spell in the air.

"Next time, I think I'd like to see in the suit." The man chuckled a little.

"If there is a next time," Tony glared up at the mask.

"Couldn't have said it better myself." The man suddenly disappeared as Loki released his spell. Loki's eyes widened and he tried to change the spell in mid air as Tony desperately grabbed at his own powers, throwing it out into the spell before it hit Tony, hit his chest and traveling through his body. Tony gasped and was thrown on his back again, his vision swimming before blacking out.

* * *

 

Tony's eyes shot open and he snorted through his nose as he tried to sit up. The hand on his chest held him down on the ground. He blinked and looked around and saw Loki above him. "So, I'm thinking that next time, you should handle the fighting," Tony croaked out, relieved when Loki let a small smile cross his lips. "Do I want to know what that spell would have done?"

"Did you want to see Hela again so soon?" Loki raised an eyebrow and Tony swallowed. "There were some creative, things, he would have done to himself before the sweet release of-"

"Got it," Tony pushed himself up to a sitting position with Loki's help.

"I tried to shape it so that it would incapacitate you, hopefully avoiding a comatose state," Tony's eyes widened slightly. "I will admit I'm not quite sure what happened to the spell when you mixed your own with it."

"Well, I'm not feeling incredibly tired, thankfully, or feeling like I should be running off a short pier with a large boulder." Tony rolled his head a little and his hat flopped off and into his lap, most of the feathers gone or broken. "Darn, I actually like that hat." Loki grabbed the hat with one hand and helped Tony to his feet with the other.

"We shall accept the hat as a sacrifice to what could have happened," Loki told him. "I think you've had enough excitement for one day."

"As long as you're not sending me to bed without dessert," Tony smirked a little.

"I believe there are a few cherries left," Loki laughed when Tony's face fell.

* * *

 

Tony held the pillow over his head in an attempt to stop tossing and turning in the bed. He was getting no sleep that night and he had no idea why. "Tony." He lifted the corner of the pillow to see one of Loki's bright green eyes. "You're restless." Tony snorted and pulled the pillow back down.

"I know that," he spoke a little louder so he wouldn't have to take the pillow off his head. "I can't sleep, and my stomach is in pain." He blinked a little when Loki grabbed the pillow and forcibly slipped him onto his back. He lifted Tony's shirt and put a glowing hand on his, slightly discoloured, stomach.

"The man must have hit you pretty hard to cause a colour such as that, and to have lasting pain through the night," Loki commented as he tried to sooth the pain. Tony relaxed a little into the bed.

"I did point out the fist crater he made, right?" Tony looked over at Loki. "It was like a smaller version when Bruce-"

"Yes," Loki said tightly. "Yes, I remember." Tony chuckled a little. Even after two years Loki still didn't like to talk about his time as a rag doll. He pulled his hand away and Tony pushed his shirt back down. "Will you be able to sleep now?"

Tony yawned and nodded a little. "If I can get my pillow back." Loki tossed it on his face and chuckled as he slid back down onto his own pillow. "See if I get you anymore cherries before we leave." Loki's head pushed under the pillow and started to nibble at Tony's jaw. "You're rebuttal has been recognized," Tony smirked. Loki turned Tony's head toward him as his lips found Tony's, capturing his bottom lip between his teeth lightly. Tony moaned a little and wrapped his hand behind Loki's neck. "Rebuttal accepted," he mumbled out between Loki's lips. Loki grinned and pulled away.

"Good," he smiled when Tony started to pout. He pulled Tony closer, sharing his own pillow now. "You'll get more, when I get more." Loki wrapped an arm around Tony's waist as he closed his eyes. He murmured under his breath as he slowly fell asleep, Loki's fingers tracing runes on Tony's back.

* * *

 

Two days later Tony stood in front of the mirror and lifted his shirt, grimacing a little at how dark the bruise was on his stomach now. "That guy could rival Thor's fist," Tony muttered, dropping his shirt again.

"I could get rid of it," Loki offered, glancing over the back of the loveseat.

"It doesn't hurt as much anymore, I think my organs have slid back into place." He wrinkled his nose a little and walked over to the loveseat. He leaned over the back of the loveseat and leaned his head on top of Loki's. "This'll just be a reminder to not underestimate someone again, at least without the suit."

"Even with the suit," Loki countered.

"I'm thinking that we should go out so I can get a new hat," Tony suggested, looking out the open doors of the balcony, seeing the Carnevale festivities still going on. "I want another shot at enjoying a full night, and I need to look as good as a certain trickster."

Loki grinned and pushed Tony's head off of his own, sliding off the loveseat. "That's a tall order, you'll be fighting immortality."

"Hey now," Tony leaned against the back of the loveseat as he watched Loki move towards the dresser. "Let's not forget that I am officially a demi-god now," Tony grinned as Loki scoffed a little. "I have some of the best mortal genetics, and now that's coupled with godly approval."

"I knew that this would go to your head, I'm just surprised that it took over a year for you to keep bragging about it." Loki threw some jeans at Tony.

"The almighty Odin deemed me to be worthy," Tony couldn't keep the grin from his face.

"It was a fluke," Loki countered as he started to change his own clothes. Tony leered at him as he slipped into some black slacks. "You had a few moments that looked brave, and happened to save a planet."

"And your life," Tony added as he changed into his own jeans. "That might have helped. What's not helping are your attempts to deflate my ego." Tony laughed when Loki scowled. "Nothing can stop the ego."

"Unfortunately, you have a point." Loki grabbed a shirt. "Don't forget that I need more cherries."

"You've replaced our smoothies with cherries, haven't you?" Tony asked, putting on a little pout. "Are you going to take away our kitchen time?"

"Only while we're here," Loki told him. "It is entirely your fault for trying to surprise me with them. You know I like cherries."

"Yeah, you got a bit of a sweet tooth," Tony rolled his eyes.

* * *

 

Pepper slid a folder over to the side as she talked to Tony in her office. "You have pictures right? Of the outfits that you two have been wearing?"

"The only thing that's changed has been my hat," Tony corrected her. "Out outfits themselves have not changed. Even the great Tony Stark can't get the designers to work a little extra in the throes of Carnevale."

Pepper rolled her eyes. "The point is you have pictures right?"

"Yes, Pepper, we have pictures," she could practically hear Tony rolling his eyes.

"Good," she nodded and leaned back in her chair. "When exactly are you two coming back? You guys have been gone for over three weeks now."

"Carnevale is almost over, you can't leave before the big finale!" Tony exclaimed. Pepper could hear all the talking, the music, and the fireworks in the background. "We'll be back in a couple days, which might be tomorrow with the time change. But don't let the other knows right away."

"Oh of course, because a vacation in Italy for three weeks means that you haven't had enough vacation from the company or the Avengers." Pepper smirked a little. "Don't you dare think about coming back without getting me something from Italy. Venice is a place I haven't gone to yet."

"Oh yes, Miss Potts," Tony's grin came through the phone. "I wouldn't dream-" his voice was drown when she heard some screams from the people over the phone.

She frowned and leaned forward. "Tony? What's going on?" There was some static as the phone sounded like it was bouncing across the concrete before plunging into water, the call disconnecting. Pepper's eyes widened before she grabbed the phone receiver and making another call.

Tony stared into the water as his phone sunk to the bottom. "That was a prototype!" He rounded on the man in in black that they had met before, Loki standing in front this time, hoping to prevent Tony from any heroics. The plaza had cleared around them and they could hear the sirens of the Polizia headed their way.

"What is it that you want here?" Loki questioned the man.

"I am merely searching for something that was lost during my travels," the deep voice replied easily. "I have tracked it here, and it takes some kind of public display to draw it out."

"Well, setting off fireworks, and then attacking us in the middle of the street aren't generally acceptable things," Tony growled out.

"I've found it, it's just a matter of obtaining it," the man replied and Tony really wished he could see the mans face under the mask.

"Non ti muovere! Tenete le mani dove possiamo vedere!" The police had surrounded the three but were looking at the man in black, weapons aimed in his general direction.

"Bad move," Tony whispered and Loki heard him. "Bad things are going to happen now." The officers started to move towards the man and he suddenly lashed out, knocking the officer to the ground before moved with unnatural speed. Loki and Tony ducked as the officers started firing their guns, but the man avoided them all, taking out the police one by one.

Tony stood back up as the gun shots stopped and he was suddenly face to mask with the man in black. His hand gripped Tony's shoulder tightly and Tony grabbed at it, wincing. His other hand reached up, glad that he had decided to wear his Asgardian jacket that night, and gripped on the medallions on the lapel. His hand glowed slightly and he put it on the man arm.

He growled and threw Tony to the ground, ducking to avoid the dagger that Loki had thrown at him. Tony blinked and pushed himself up when he thought he heard the sound of an engine over the water. Looking over he saw a quinjet and the back opened up to reveal Bruce and Clint.

"Little late for the festivities!" Tony called out. "And you're not even in costume!" The two men jumped out and onto the ground as the jet hovered up and away from the fray.

"We were in France," Bruce told him as he walked over, Clint instantly looking for a higher vantage point. "Pepper called us when she said she heard screams and your phone dying."

"That menace just threw it into the water!" Tony pointed at the man fighting with Loki. "It was still a prototype!"

"Tony!" Bruce and Tony ducked instinctively when they heard Clint yell. Tony grabbed at the medallion again when he was dragged back by a hand grabbing the collar of his jacket. He gasped when there was a punch to his back and he fell on his side. He was pushed onto his back and the man in black made a fist and Tony had a moment of deja vu. This time he wasn't able to move and the first collided with his chest. No. With his arc Reactor.

Tony let out short cry of pain when he felt the reactor and the metal casing around it shift, being pushed coming up to his chest. His breathing was labored and there were tears of pain in his eyes as he gasped every so often. A very human looking Bruce appeared over Tony and opened his jacket then ripped open the silk shirt. He tried to keep a neutral expression, but Tony saw the flash of something in his eyes.

"Just, tell me, it's still, glowing," Tony ground out. At least that's why he hoped he said, all the blood rushing past his hears blocked most sound.

Bruce nodded then turned to say something to Loki. Tony used his little known skill of lip reading.

"He has to get to either a hospital, or the Tower, immediately," Bruce had told Loki.

"The stuff at the hotel," Tony arched his back but Bruce pushed down on his shoulder to keep him straight on the ground. "Also, there's a private," Tony groaned in pain, "private hospital just outside Ravenna, close to the ocean." Tony took a breath and met Bruce and Loki's eyes. "It's away from big cities, nice place, they know me."

"This will help," He saw Loki's lips move and he frowned a little as Loki placed two finger on his forehead. Tony took a breath before he blacked out.

* * *

 

When Tony finally blinked his eyes opened he was aware of a hand on his stomach, a weight on his arm, and something wrapped around his chest. He could smell the salt ocean air, hear the sounds of the water out the window, and could see the rising sun light coming in through the window to the side of the bed. He tilted his head to the side and saw that Loki's arm was what was on his stomach and Loki's head had fallen asleep on Tony's arm.

He stretched his back a little then suddenly sucked in a breath and hissed in pain. Loki jumped up and blinked a little then put a hand on Tony's shoulder.

"Tony? Are you okay?" Loki's speech was still a little slurred from the rude awakening and Tony clenched his eyes shut, willing the pain away.

"Yup," he breathed out. "Nothing like a little morning pain as a wake up call."

"You should be used to it as an Avenger," Loki rubbed his arm before stretching his own arms up.

"Should be," Tony dropped his head into the pillow and let out a sigh. "I feel like whenever I see that guy, I always end up blacking out. What happened this time?"

"You offended someone with your arc reactor," Tony looked over when he heard Bruce's voice. The man was standing the door way, holding onto his glasses. "He punched it, cracked the glass and pushed it in. The metal casing around it started to move and shift going under your skin. Anymore movement and it could have disconnected from the magnet, and it could have been an ugly surgery."

Tony blinked a little and looked down, seeing little dark spots on the bandages around his chest. "Well, if that isn't a way to end an anniversary trip, I don't know what is."

"Try not to top it next year, alright?" Loki eyed him, having taken his hand and playing with Tony's fingers in his own.

"You should be fit to travel by tomorrow if you don't do anything stupid today," Bruce told him. "I talked with the other doctors and got them to transfer all documents to the Tower in New York, and let me and the medical staff there take care of your follow up care."

"You are a saint, Banner," Tony breathed out.

"I'm mostly just going to be there for observation, I'm not a medical Doctor," Banner argued. "I just moonlight as one, so you're going to have to listen to your own staff." Tony started to mutter something and Loki just shook his head.

* * *

 

Tony had hoped that he might get another day of rest before Bruce took him to get some tests, x-rays, and CT scans done when they got back to New York. He had also expected Pepper to show up sooner than she did. Loki had excused himself to talk to Bruce while Pepper berated him, then teared up, and told him that she was happy to see him back in one piece.

Tony had nodded, putting in a few words when needed, but couldn't keep his attention away from the glass door where he saw Loki and Bruce talking, a slightly baffled look on his face.

"You're lab blew up last week." Tony's head flew back to look at Pepper and she looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "So you heard that?"

"Wait, what?" He blinked a little, trying to process her words. "My lab?"

"Nothing's wrong with your lab, you weren't paying attention to me," Pepper accused. "You're gone on this trip across most of Italy, and then when you do come back, almost in one piece, you still ignore me."

"I'm not ignoring you Pepper," Tony looked at her as Loki and Bruce walked back in the room.

"He ignores me, too," Loki said as they approached. "Don't take it too personally."

Pepper huffed a little, but smiled gently. Her phone started to to ring and she sighed a little, standing up. "Make sure he doesn't get hurt again," she looked at Loki. "He's usually a magnet for all kinds of trouble." Loki snorted as Pepper gathered her bag and left.

"So what was so disconcerting?" Tony didn't let Loki and Bruce rest after Pepper left. He was curious. "What were you two looking at out there?"

Bruce sighed a little and pulled out the scans they had been looking at. "They had taken some scans back in Italy, and I was comparing them to the scans we took when you got back." Tony took the scans and looked at them, not exactly sure what he was looking for. "Loki told me that last week when you ran into that man-"

"I call him Punchy," Tony said. "He likes to punch."

"Loki told me that you took a particularly painful blow to the stomach," Bruce continued, ignoring the nickname. "It seems that it might have done a bit more damage than you thought. Some of your insides are still rearranging." Tony blinked a little. That's when he saw it. Some of his lower organs had shifted between the two scans. "It's nothing too serious, specially if you aren't feeling too much pain. Organs can move for any number of reasons, and they tend to naturally shift back into place."

"So it's nothing to worry about too much then?" Tony raised an eyebrow.

"I'm sure this has happened to you before, you are Iron Man," Bruce smirked a little and Tony glared slightly. "It's something that we'll be watching, but nothing to get overly concerned about."

"Well, good," Tony leaned back against his pillow handing the scans back to Bruce. "So when can I bust out of this joint?"

* * *

 

"A week!" Tony exclaimed as he and Loki walked out of the medical bay. "He kept me there for a week!"

"A week that you needed," Loki told him. He gently tapped Tony's repaired reactor. "Your body needed the time to heal around the casing, and you were able to properly protect the reactor again." Tony sighed a little and Loki took his hand.

"So now that I'm all better, and it's late, and we're headed back to our room,..." Tony trailed off a little and Loki rolled his eyes. "Oh come on!"

"You are incorrigible," Loki told the younger man as they walked into their bedroom. Loki ophed when Tony kicked the door closed and pushed him up against the wall, covering Loki's mouth with his own. "Tony," Loki tried to call between kisses. "Tony."

"I think, that we should make this last month, celebration month," Tony told him as he started to nip and suck at his neck.

"Last month? Did they perhaps give you too much medication before we left?" Loki wasn't exactly turning Tony away, but wasn't sure if the man was up for anything too strenuous yet. He was still ban from the Iron Man suit for two more weeks.

"The month before our actual anniversary," Tony explained and started to slip Loki's shirt off. Loki moaned and let the man take his shirt off.

"Tony, are you sure you're feeling alright?" Loki had been there for many a hangover, although they were rare these days, and many a bad decision. He didn't want to see Tony wake up to next morning in pain because he pushed himself too fast.

"If you ask me that one more time, I'm going to gag you." Tony started to pull Loki back towards the bed as the god stopped arguing. Tony had just released Loki from any liability, and he was okay with this.

* * *

 

Tony was staring at the Iron Man suit while he listened to the comm lines of the Avengers eight days later. Bruce and Steve had forbidden him from getting into the suit early, Bruce arguing that the skin around the arc reaction was still red and tender, and he didn't need a well place hit to the chest messing that up. Tony relented and stayed down in his workshop, comm lines opens, and surveillance on.

"Hawk, coming up from two blocks, a few more bots," Tony told him as some of his own camera bots flew around the battle ground. Loki had gone in Tony's place, not usually liking to be associated with the Avengers too often. "Cap, watch your right."

"Tony, can you see how many are left?" Widow's voice sounded next. Tony typed a few things at his desk and one of the bots flew up to get an aerial view.

"Maybe tell us where they're originating from too," the Captain asked.

Tony nodded a little to himself as he studied the screens. "You're taking the numbers down, but there seems to be some kind of, portal, or something that they're coming from. Hawkeye, turn to the North and you'll be able to see it. See if there's some kind of trigger you can take out."

"What am I looking for exactly?" Tony could see Clint jumping from building to building to get to the point of origin.

"Maybe some kind of box, some flashing lights, a big sign made by freaking Wile E. Coyote? I don't know, I didn't make it." Tony thought that he could have made a cloaking device to go over his portal if he were the villain.

"Now now," Loki chided softly over the comm. "Don't let your cabin fever get the better of you, Tony."

"Unground me and maybe I could be a bigger help," Tony retorted. He scrunched up his face a little and rubbed his stomach. Things were still moving around inside his body according to Bruce, and he was starting to feel it.

"I think I- uh oh." Tony looked over where Clint was and blinked when he saw two dozen more bots march out through the portal.

"Take it out, take it out Clint!" Tony shouted as he started typing at the keyboard bringing up controls for the bots. "You guys have got incoming. Thor we could use a little lighting, and maybe a little green." He heard the roar of the Hulk as some of the bots flew over to the portal to help Clint take out the receiver.

He could hear Steve handing out positions and strategies as Tony watched the screens after deploying commands to his own bots. Tony suddenly doubled over, a hand flying to his stomach, the other holding himself up with the desk. "JARVIS, mute." He choked out as sharp pain rippled through his body.

"Sir, should I call back Dr Banner or Mr Loki?" If JARVIS could be, he'd be helping his creator. He sounded as concerned as an AI system could be.

"No," Tony shook his head and took a breath. "They need to stay there, this will pass."

"Would you like me to scan your body, sir?" Tony nodded as he let himself slide to the floor so he could lean against the side of the desk.

"Scan and save the images, have them ready for Bruce and Loki when they're done with the battle." The sharp pain was gone, but a heavy ache had settled and wouldn't let Tony get comfortable. "If I ever find Punchy, I'm going to return the favor with the Iron Man suit. Several times over."

"Tony? Tony are you there?" Tony blinked when he heard Clint's voice coming over the comm. Tony took a deep breath and signaled for JARVIS to unmute him.

"Yeah, I'm here, sorry," he tried to sound as normal as possible. As normal as Tony Stark could sound. He glanced up at one of the screens that JARVIS had swung around for him. "The readings for the portal are gone, you've dismantled it. Good job, birdie."

"We'll do some clean up then get back to the Tower," Cap said. "There's only a few more."

"Try to have some drinks ready," Natasha claimed, a smirk in her voice.

"Buy your own." Tony waved his hand the comm disconnected. "Gods know I could use a drink myself."

"I would not recommend it with the medication that Dr Banner has given you," JARVIS warned and Tony rolled his eyes. He groaned and pulled his his knees up to his stomach, putting his head between his knees.

"Let me know when they get here JARVIS," Tony called out. "Don't take any calls, just let Loki and Bruce in here when they get here. Just those two." He didn't wait to hear his AI confirm as he started to take deep, calming breaths. He tried to focus on the energies stored, even if just to take his mind off of the pain.

His head shot up suddenly when someone grabbed his shoulder. He saw Loki kneeling in front of him, Bruce looking at something on a tablet. "Why, hello there," Tony smirked a little, resting his head on his knees.

"How bad was the pain?" Bruce asked immediately, flipping through the scans that JARVIS had taken.

"On a scale of 0 to 5? About a 7" Tony groaned out. "How bad is it?"

Bruce furrowed his brows a little. "Nothing actually happened," he looked up at Tony. "Nothing that wasn't already expected." Tony blinked at Bruce as Loki put a hand to Tony's head.

"But, that doesn't make sense," Tony leaned back against the desk a little. "I am the first person to claim that there's nothing wrong with me, but even I can't stand that much pain."

"There is magic lingering inside of you," Loki said and both men looked at him. "A residue, if you will. I believe it was that altered spell that caused the pain this time."

"From Italy?"

"Altered spell?" Bruce asked over Tony. Bruce had been one of the first to fall in with Tony in trying to add magic to science. While he wasn't interested in finding out if he could store energy (the Other guy was enough for him) he was incredibly interested to know how it worked.

"The first time we ran into Punchy, Loki tried to hit him with a spell." Tony started to explain and Loki's hand started to glow slightly, running soothing waves through his body. "I'm not exactly sure what it was gonna do, it wasn't gonna be nice though. Well, Punchy moved faster than we anticipated and that nasty thing was headed right for me. Loki tried to alter it in mid flight, and then I tried to alter it."

Bruce had just raised his eyebrows. "I don't think trouble magnet accurately describes you. We need to find a stronger phrase." Tony's face deadpanned.

* * *

 

Tony looked around and blinked when he saw a golden light in front of him. The last time he had seen that was when Loki was under his supervision and showing him how to channel energy into magic. Tony stared at his core when the light around it started to pulse. The air around him started to tingle with electricity and a wind had started to whip up around him. Tony though that he saw little green flashes and suddenly his core split into two.

Tony gasped as his eyes shot open. He was staring at the ceiling of their bedroom, Loki's arm wrapped around his waist. He took a couple of deep breaths and Loki shuffled a little. "Tony?" He heard the tired voice whisper.

"Sorry," Tony said quietly, putting a hand on his chest. "Go back to sleep."

"You won't," Loki said matter of factly. Loki yawned and turned a little. "What happened? Was it another nightmare?"

"I'm not sure," Tony frowned a little. The lights had dimmed up just enough for Loki to see his face. "It was a weird dream, but it was almost like I could feel it happening." Loki looked at him, knowing that he wouldn't have to voice his question. "I think it had something to do with my core?" Tony wasn't sure himself.

Loki slid a hand on Tony's chest and he could feel Loki's own energy searching out his core. Loki had closed his eyes and when he started to frown himself Tony became a little concerned. Loki's hand slid down his chest then stopped on his stomach and his eyes shot open. He started to swear in Ancient Norse and Tony blinked.

"What? What happened?" Tony sat up a little and looked at Loki. "Is it serious?"

Loki didn't answer for a few minutes and he finally looked up to meet Tony's eyes. "I believe that you are with child." Tony stared at him before he fell back onto the bed, blacking out.

* * *

 

Tony coughed a little when he opened his eyes again. He saw Loki's face above him and he smiled slightly. "A man could get used to a sight like this."

"You are in denial," Loki muttered and pulled the man to sit up in the bed. Tony raised an eyebrow then it all came rushing back to him.

"Oh my gods," Tony muttered and held a hand to his head. He looked up at Loki. "You were just pulling my leg, right? About that whole with child thing. Right?" Loki didn't answer him and he started to take a few deeper breaths. "Right?"

"I think that we should wake Dr Banner," Loki suggested. "I believe that this is also the spells doing."

"You found my core," Tony looked at Loki. He had to know what he found first. "Then you're hand moved. What did you find?"

Loki looked at him. "Your core has split into two, becoming a part of another life form." Tony's eye twitched a little. "Now, as I suggested-"

"JARVIS," Tony sighed out a little. "Wake up Bruce, be gentle about it, and tell him to meet us down in the medical bay. Just him, no one else." The two men slipped from the bed and Tony rubbed his hands over his face.

"I will not be seen with the Avengers more than I have to," Loki said suddenly and Tony looked over at him. "I have my own reputation to uphold. I remain a neutral party when it comes to the battles of Midguard." Tony blinked then started to laugh.

"I needed that," Tony sighed a little and smiled at Loki. "I need you to keep being you. Still slightly evil and all." Loki raised an eyebrow, but smirked.

That was not the sight that greeted Bruce when he walked into the medical bay. Tony should not be allowed to think on things. Bruce yawned and rubbed at his eyes. "Alright, what did Tony do now?"

"Oh, I am placing half of the blame on a certain god," Tony spoke up, pointing towards Loki who was sitting on one of the counters.

"It's four in the morning," Bruce sighed a little. "I don't care who's fault it is."

"I am of the opinion that we have spelled Tony for the worse, and he had become burdened with child," Loki spoke. Tony and Bruce both blinked and looked over at the man. "I am also tired."

"Most people slur their words, and speak with three words." Tony raised an eyebrow. "You on the other hand use more words and become harder to understand?"

"You two shouldn't even work as a couple," Bruce pulled over a rolly chair to sit in. "So, you're trying to tell me that you think Tony is pregnant?" Tony scrunched his nose up.

"I don't like that word," Tony said. "Let's stick with some of the stuff Loki says. Burdened, carrying, with child."

"Small bundle of crying flesh," Loki added.

Bruce turned on a computer. "Why do you think you're, uh, burdened with child?"

"Loki said so."

"Okay, same question applies," Bruce looked over his glasses at Loki.

"Because I sensed a second life force within his body." Loki stated. "It has been over three weeks since the spell affected him."

"And of course you two had sex like rabbits while in Italy," Bruce rubbed his nose. "I'm not saying I believe any of this right away, it's too weird, and just doesn't make any sense. But it's too early int he morning to make sense."

"So how are you going to check and see if it's true?" Tony asked. "I mean, you said stuff was moving down there, but you never said if anything was growing down there."

"Because I wasn't looking for it," Bruce glanced over. "I had no reason to be suspicious that something else might be happening." He sighed a little and grabbed what looked like an ultrasound wand. "Lay down," Bruce motioned to Tony who was already sitting in a reclining chair. Tony leaned back as Bruce flipped on the device.

Tony took a breath as Bruce slowly moved up and down Tony's stomach, the lasers and radar able to penetrate through Tony's shirt. Tony wasn't confident with releasing this tech to hospital just yet, he hadn't tested it thoroughly enough to let the public use it. After several moments Bruce pulled the wand away and rolled back over to the computer screen as different images started to show up.

"I should also do some kind of blood test, just to be sure," Bruce muttered as he clicked through a few things. He suddenly frowned and moved back and forth between a couple pictures. Tony raised an eyebrow and snapped his fingers. A large screen appeared in front of him and the pictures that Bruce was looking at appeared in front of him.

Loki blinked a little as he leaned over to look at what Tony was seeing. He squinted a little at the black and white pictures. "What do they say? I'm afraid I still do not quite understand mortal physiology," Loki confessed.

"Apparently neither do we," Bruce muttered. "This can't be right. According to these readings you look to be almost three months along, Tony."

"This will show you the child?" Loki asked, clearly not concerned about the time tables. "On Asgard we do not see the child until it is born."

"Three months? That can't be right!" Tony slumped down into the chair and ran a hand through his hair.

"Three months is a very far progression," Loki told them. That caught their attention a little. "If that were so, Tony would have to be quite a bit larger."

"How long is a gestation period on Asgard?" Bruce asked, honestly intrigued.

"No more than five human months," Loki told them. "They are rather quick for we do not like the prospect of carry the child for very long, wanting to bring it into a family as soon as possible."

"A human pregnancy is nine months, give or take, down here," Bruce told Loki and Loki immediately scrunched his face in distaste.

"Nine months is far too long, it must be a horrible time," Loki had crossed his arms over his chest.

"You two seem to have accepted this quite easily," Tony muttered out, a hand drifting down to his stomach.

"I believe that Tony would be lucky enough to go through an Asgardian term," Loki stated. "The child was brought about through the bindings of a spell, and Tony now has Asgardian energies running through his being."

"That doesn't give us much time to hide this from the public," Bruce leaned back in the chair. "People are already asking why Iron Man hasn't been seen with the Avengers lately. Tony, what-" Bruce turned then blinked. "Tony?" The chair was empty.

* * *

 

Tony sighed and leaned his head against the glass overlooking the balcony of the penthouse. He could faintly see the reds and purples of the sun coming to the horizon and figured he wasn't going to get any more sleep anyway. Bruce and Loki were so engrossed in gestation periods, and talking about what was going to happen, and Tony wasn't even sure how he Felt about it happening in the first place.

"Tony?" Tony blinked and turned his head slightly seeing Thor walking off the elevator. "What are you doing up so early, friend?"

Tony raised an eyebrow and stood up straight. "I could ask you the same thing, bug guy."

"I always rise this early. I have made it a tradition whenever I am on Midgard to watch the sun rise." Thor smiled as he walked over next to Tony to look out the glass. "It is a very different site than of that on Asgard, as you are aware." Tony nodded a little and looked back out, shoving his hand in his pockets. "Now, why are you up?"

"I needed to do some thinking," Tony admitted.

"Anything that I may be able to help ease your mind of?" Thor asked, eager to help.

Tony sighed slightly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, maybe. Apparently I'm, well, with baby." Tony vaguely motioned towards his stomach.

"That is great news friend!" Thor threw open his arms but restrained himself from crushing Tony in a hug. "I am to have another niece or nephew?"

"Yeah," Tony's foot shuffled on the floor and Thor put his arms down when he sensed the trepidation coming from the normally very confident man.

"You are not pleased?" Thor was confused. He studied Tony for a second before it dawned on him. "You are uncertain."

"Men aren't even supposed to be able to have a kid, not here," Tony threw an arm out in frustration. "I get the unfortunate luck to get hit with some kind of supped up spell, and suddenly I'm not me anymore." Tony sighed. "And Loki and Bruce are down there comparing differences between the realms, and what to tell the press, and I really couldn't give a shit what they think." Thor started to chuckle and Tony raised an eyebrow, sending a glare the thunder gods way.

"I do not mean to make light of your situation, Tony," Thor explained. "You sound a lot like Loki when he first found out he was with child." Tony's eyebrows shot up.

"He what?" Tony blinked. He know that Loki had children, he had met four of them, and they actually liked, or at least tolerated Tony.

"Oh yes, he birthed two of his children, three if you should like to include Jormungandr, but he was created with magic." Thor explained, leading Tony over to sit in one of the chairs. "His first was his daughter Hela. Loki was so nervous that our mother had to spell him to sleep for a month, he could get no rest. He was very emotional, up until the birth of my wonderful niece." Thor smiled as he seemed to think back to the day. Tony watched him carefully. "He took instantly to being a parent when she was born, and felt that all of his worrying and fear was for naught."

Tony blinked and slumped down into the chair a little. "Did he ever wonder if he wasn't ready to be a parent?"

"Almost exclusively," Thor confirmed. "The first week he begged our parents to take the child from him, but they would not. If you were to ask him now, he would deeply regret ever saying those things." Tony swallowed a little and nodded. "Tony," he looked up at the older god, "I think that you should not worry about if you will be a good father. I have no doubt that you will be."

"How can you know that?" Tony frowned a little looking at Thor. "Do you know how long it took before I even thought about settling down? Making a commitment to just one person?" Tony leaned his head back. "Sometimes I wonder when I'm going to mess it up. And now I'm suddenly being told that there's gonna be a little person with half my gene running around? I'm not fit to be a father! I didn't have a father figure to look up to to teach me how to be ready for parenthood!" Tony rubbed his face again.

"I think that you and Loki have a lot to discuss," Thor said thoughtfully. "Do not worry about what others will say or think, for now you must think of the life of the little one you carry, and of what you and my brother shall do with it." Thor stood up and clapped Tony's shoulder gently.

Tony blinked a little and watched Thor walk back towards the elevator. "Hey, Thor," Thor turned his head back towards Tony. "You really like throwing people off their game don't you?"

"I am bound to be King of Asgard," Thor smirked. "I must not show all my hands, not even to my allies." He stepped into the elevator and smiled knowingly at Tony.

"Son of a bitch has been leading us to think he's an idiot," Tony muttered under his breath.

"Only when it matters," Tony jumped a little at Loki's voice behind him. He turned his head to See Loki walking over. He sat on the couch that Thor had recently vacated. "You're mind is racing with thoughts," Loki ran his hand through Tony's hair gently. "Is this going to be one of your moments where you will swear me to secrecy of anyone else ever knowing that you have deep emotions and thoughts?" Tony nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, this seems like one of those moments."

"I don't know if I can be a father," Tony quietly admitted. "Much less carry the kid. I mean, what kind of examples did I have growing up? A father who told me after he was dead that I was his greatest creation, not even that he loved me. And then a man that tried to kill me, twice!" He dropped his head on the back of the chair. "I can't raise a kid."

Loki watched the man wrestle with his thoughts. "I think that when the time comes, that you will use those experiences as what you should not do."

"How can you know that?" Tony looked up at Loki. "How can you know that I won't-" He stopped when Loki put a finger on his lips.

"I don't," Loki told him. "But neither do you. I am sure that Thor told you things that were most likely mine to tell," Tony nodded in the affirmative. "He is not entirely wrong." Tony started to pull on his fingers, cracking them, in a nervous habit. "There's something else that's bothering you?"

"Well, yeah a little, I guess." Tony thought a little about it. "I mean, genetics wise, this kid is gonna be the definition of a mutt, and-"

"You are wondering about my Jotun blood?" Loki confirmed his thoughts. "I would not worry about it too much. My glamour is strong, and affects not only my outside appearance, but a little of what I am on the inside."

"It's just a little confusing, Human, Asgardian, Jotun, I mean, what else can we throw in there?" Tony let out a small smile and leaned back against the chair. "This means I can't be Iron Man for a bit longer, huh?" Loki nodded, a scowl on his face.

"That means that I must be there to bail out your band of heroes when things become too much for them," Loki scoffed. Tony laughed a little and let a little smile stay on his face. "Do you feel a little better at least?"

"Not in the least," Tony snorted. "But, I've been reassured a little. Plus, I suppose I could always go see Frigga if I get too stressed."

"Ah yes," Loki nodded. "Mother shall be very excited to know that another grandchild shall be on the way." Loki smiled at Tony, and he couldn't help but smile back. It seemed so genuine that it was rather contagious.

"Now we just have to keep it secret," Tony groaned a little. He instantly thought of Punchy and sighed. "I do not see this whole, situation, going very well."

"We can always spend some time in Asgard," Loki offered simply. "They will be more knowledgeable up there, also. I'm sure that you will be doted upon, something I'm sure you would enjoy."

Tony raised his eyebrow a little, then shook his head. "Not long amounts of time at least, it'll look a little suspicious for my own reputation to keep." If he wasn't mistaken Loki was becoming even more protective and possibly worried.

"Then I shall teach you a spell that will allow you to keep your normal appearance," Loki told him. "I used it often enough many years ago. It is very effective, and rather simple to cast."

"Sounds just up my alley," Tony grinned slightly. "Just gotta get through the next few months, now." Loki nodded slightly and watched Tony closely. "I suppose I should get started on some better surveillance bots if I'm going to helping you guys from the lab more often now."

"Helping the Avengers," Loki corrected. "As I said, I will only be out there should they need dire help. I am no Avenger," Loki waved his hand around, as if brushing away the title from himself. Tony smirked a little.

"You keep saying that, I'm starting to think that maybe you're going into denial about it." He pushed himself up from the chair and Loki followed, a scowl on his features. "You're out there enough that the media has pegged you as serving time, searching for redemption, whatever."

"I shall have to rectify that," Loki state. "I'm sure the news rooms will change their minds when-"

"Oh please don't blow out their windows again," Tony groaned a little as he reached the bar of the penthouse. He reached down into the mini fridge and pulled out some juice he usually used for drinks. "I really don't want to have to explain to Fury that you destroyed thousands of dollars in glass because someone accused you of being a super hero."

"They should know better," Loki argued, watching Tony grab a glass and pour the juice in it. "They should do their research before they start to make accusations about a person and their actions."

"Oh, but then we wouldn't have news, or politics, and really where is the fun in that?" Tony grinned as he took a large drink. "Well, this just isn't going to be the same as scotch," he pouted a little.

"I'm happy to see that you've already started to make some smart decision," Loki told him. "Now I think that we should go back down to see Dr Banner so-"

"You're concerned about me," Tony grinned a little. "You were all facts and business downstairs, but now that you can't focus on that your worry is starting to show." Loki narrowed his eyes slightly.

"What are you going on about now?" Loki huffed a little through his nose. "I am merely suggesting that you let Dr Banner continue with an examination. He was talking about running some tests, and I think they might be a good idea, since you do not want to spend too much time in Asgard."

"Loki, you know it's perfectly okay to be worried, right?" Tony looked at him. "I mean, I'm terrified if I'm honest with myself, and I never usually am." Tony stepped forward and put a hand on Loki's cheek. "If being worried will help you get through this with me, then by all means, worry over me. Just know that worried or not, I want you there to help me when I start freaking out again."

Loki wrapped his arms around Tony and pulled him against his chest gently, resting his head against Tony's. "I just want to make sure that nothing happens to you. I am not entirely sure how this happened, but I want to make sure that nothing else happens to you, or the small bundle of crying flesh."

Tony snorted a little as her wrapped one arm around Loki's neck. "You can't keep calling it a bundle of crying flesh. I'm going to call it JB, short for jelly bean. That's what it looks like to me."

Loki closed his eyes and chuckled lightly. "I will be here for every moment that you and JB have." He pressed a kiss to Tony's temple. "And if you ever tell anyone about this moment, I will have your tongue as my trophy."

* * *

 

Pepper had managed to get Tony back to work a week later, and he was not happy that it had to be a meeting with the Board of Directors. He was bored out of his mind and he couldn't even have a drink. Tony had called for a lunch break two hours in and got up leaving the room before anyone could object, leaving Pepper to make excuses about how he was still recuperating.

Tony escaped down the stairs and out to one of his drivers waiting out back. "Put in an order from Harper's, and let go get it," Tony said before he slipped into the back seat of the town car. Tony was rubbing his temples when the car started and they took off into the city.

"Not feeling well, Stark?" Tony's eyes shot open when heard the deep voice from the driver. He looked up seeing the back of the mans head, almost expecting to see a black mask.

"I should have noticed that you weren't any of my normal drivers," Tony leaned back in the seat, trying to give off what little confidence he could recover. "You're a little more resourceful than I thought."

"You should be wondering how long have I actually been here," The man smirked and Tony could see dark brown eyes in the rear view mirror glancing back at him. "You've never seen my face before, so think to yourself, Stark, how long have I been watching you?"

"Not that long," Stark answered confidently. "I would have recognized your voice back in Italy."

"Can you honestly tell me that you talk to all of your staff? The staff in your company? Your drivers? Chefs, housekeepers, security?" Tony swallowed a little, but didn't let it show through his face. The man was right.

"Say you're right, and you have been here for a while, why wait this long?" Tony crossed a leg and straightened the fabric of his pant leg.

"I had to wait until you presented me with an opportunity," the man answered casually. "Going to another country without any back up and no assurance of an Iron Man suit? I almost couldn't have asked for better."

"Apparently you could have though, because I'm still alive," Tony countered.

"When did I give the impression that I wanted you dead?" He started to chuckle when he noticed that the thought that crossed Tony's mind. "I merely needed you incapacitated to retrieve what you took from me."

"I didn't take anything from you," Tony told him. "You've been misinformed. Also, what do I call you, I can't keep you in my villain system as Punchy."

The man raised an eyebrow slowly. "Skir," he said simply. "That's the only name that will matter when I come to claim what is mine." The car stopped and Tony noticed that there were back at Stark Industries. "I'll be seeing you soon, Mr Stark." The man smirked and Tony pushed himself out of the car, determined not to run back in the building. Loki was not going to be happy with him.

* * *

 

"It was just a little meeting, nothing to be worried about," Tony said as he watched the battle on the screen. Some scientist had gotten a little overzealous in some experiments and the results were running through Seattle. Tony had dubbed them a gremlins rejected cousin, but it seemed that they were able to combine to create larger forms. And the team was trying to figure out just how many of them there were, and if they could get rid of them all.

"Nothing to be worried about?" Loki's voice came back through the comm line. "You were in a car, alone, with the man that tried to kill you, twice." Tony noted that when Loki got frustrated or angry at Tony he started to use more slang. One day Tony would have to tell him about this, now was not the time.

"How did you even find out?" Tony had been wondering that ever since Loki had managed to bring it up into the battle. "It happened a week ago." He winced a little, he hadn't meant that detail to slip.

"Obviously not from you," Loki seethed out. Tony had that coming. "I got an interesting call from Pepper, telling me that for the fourth time this week you had denied a driver and was driving yourself from the offices. We know you Tony, you prefer a driver when you're working because you don't want to leave any of your precious vehicles in that parking garage." Tony nodded a little.

"You got me there. I wasn't aware that Pepper had become so observant," he scratched a little at his goatee and leaned back in the chair. "Couple more mama gremlins coming from the north, by the way."

"She also noticed that you had been going through employee profiles," Loki told him. "Why didn't you tell anyone!"

"Because he didn't do anything!" Tony sighed a little. "He was just talking, trying to freak me out, set me on edge. It didn't work."

"It didn't?" Loki asked, doubt evident in his voice. "It didn't affect you so much that you've been driving yourself, and you've started profiling your employees?"

"Listen ladies," Clint's annoyed voice sounded. "As much as we love hearing you squabble-"

"Just, shut, up," Natasha finished. "Tony's an idiot, I thought that was pretty clear. Loki's overprotective."

"I am not-" Loki started.

"She's right," Bruce's voice came through this time. "I've encountered it personally." Loki growled lightly.

"Can you guys finish this later at the Tower?" Steve sighed through the comm. "We're still down Tony, Thor is back in Asgard, and I'd really rather not have Loki irritated with us." There was a general consensus of hushed voices. "Good. I feel like an underpaid babysitter, sometimes."

"Hey Bruce," Natasha started. "When are we gonna get Iron Man back?" Tony's eyes widened a little. Bruce had been keeping up the front that Tony's reactor wasn't strong enough yet to accept the suit, while Tony and Loki thought of some way to tell the others. If they told the others. But being out of commission for three more months might start to look kind of suspicious.

"Not real sure," Bruce answered smoothly. "I'm running some more tests later this week."

"I resent being your science experiment," Tony mumbled, crossing his arms like an adolescent.

"I'm sure Tony will let everyone know by blasting a hole in the ceiling with his suit," Bruce said.

"Yeah, yeah," Tony rolled his eyes. "Just get on back now, you've taken out the last of the overfed gremlins." He cut the comm and sighed, spinning around in his chair. He almost stumbled out of the chair when it was stopped suddenly. "What the-" He turned his head then instantly rolled out of the chair, taking giant steps backwards.

"Seattle is a long travel, Mr Stark," Skir pushed the chair away.

"You made the mistake of breaking into My lab, that was your first mistake of the day," Tony told him waving around some of the tables.

"I told you I would come to claim what I lost," he slowly advanced on Tony. He eyes locked on Tony's arc reactor.

Tony blinked a little then reached over to the table where he was working on some Iron Man modifications and grabbed the gauntlet that was there. He slipped it on as he scrambled underneath the desk when Skir dove for him. Quickly attached the wire to his arc reactor he pointed a glowing hand straight at Skir's face.

"One wrong move you'll have an extra hole in your face." Tony threatened as he moved back, coming to stand up on the other side of the desk, never taking his eyes off of Skir. "Now why don't you tell me real cool like what you want, then just get the hell out."

"You are wearing my prize," Skir growled out through clenched teeth. "Do you know how long it took to get my hands on that relic? The planning, the calculating, just to see you take it, and to have the audacity to place it in your chest." Tony blinked, a little lost now.

"My arc reactor?" Tony asked, heavily confused. "Whoa there buddy, this is mine, I didn't find it or take it from anyone." Skir moved to the side and Tony moved his hand, the gauntlet giving off a whine as it charged. "Although i'm not sure why you would want it with fists of steel there. Those are more powerful than the reactor could ever give you."

Skir laughed and Tony frowned. This wasn't going well. "Reactor? That's all that you think it is? The power that is held within is more than you could imagine!" He suddenly jumped over the desk and Tony reeled backwards, letting off a shot of the repulsor. Skir managed to avoid it and wrapped an hand around Tony's neck, ripping the cord from the reactor and pulling off the gauntlet. Tony saw his hand curl into a familiar fist and his eyes widened.

"NO!" Tony instantly wrapped his arms around his stomach, letting go of the hand around his neck. He shut his eyes, waiting for the impending impact that would probably break both his arms. It didn't come and he slowly opened his eyes to see a smirking Skir.

He let go of Tony's neck, but grabbed the mans shoulder before he could back away. "I had wondered why you were keeping a glamour," Skir commented. "Did I forget to mention that I have a sixth sense to most magic?"

"You may have left out that detail," Tony bit out. When Skir's hand reached out to cover the reactor Tony was torn about which was more important, what to protect the most. "No, nonononono," Tony moved with Skir's hand when he tried to grip the metal casing around the reactor. "You can't pull that out, please don't pull that out," Tony spoke quickly.

"I understand that it will be painful," Skir started, "but it shall teach you not to put it in such an easily accessible place." His fingers dug around to the actually reactor and tried to pull it, but Tony kept moving forward with each tug.

"I didn't put it there by choice, you idiot!" Tony glared. "You think I would put a power source where everyone could see it? Hell no! If I was stupid enough to do this to myself I would have put it somewhere else, not so visible. It probably wouldn't even be Attached to me!"

"Why would a mortal put the power of the tesseract-"

"What." Tony's eyes widened. "What did you just say." Tony's voice was deadly serious and even Skir wondered what the man was capable of. "You took the tesseract? You dared go and find it? To steal it? Then to Lose it!"

"If this is not the relic, then where is it?" Skir hissed pushing his face closer to Tony's. "You have-" he glanced at the reactor, then back to Tony, and smirked. "You would be able to find it for me."

"Oh no," Tony wrenched Skir's hand off of his chest, adrenaline coursing through his veins now. "I will not find it for you," Tony growled and pushed against the hand on his shoulder. "Rest assured, I'll find it, but when I do you better pray you are no where near me buddy." Skir let go of Tony as the shorter man advanced on him. He thought he noticed that Tony's eyes became brighter, that the air around him became electrified and slightly darker.

"Tony!" Both men turned when they saw Fury standing in the door of the lab, gun pulled and pointed at Skir. There was another click and Tony saw Coulson standing on the side of them, weapon also pointed at Skir. "I think you should step away from the scientist, sir."

Skir looked at Tony and smirked a little. "I look forward to finding the tesseract, Asgardian," Skir spit out before moving backwards. He shimmered away as both Coulson and Fury had moved towards him.

Tony took a couple of breath then stumbled backwards. Coulson immediately grabbed his arms and pulled him upright, weapon already in its holster. Tony was suddenly feeling drained and looked between the two men. "When did you come to join the party and why didn't you bring any scotch?"

"We got a frantic alarm from your computer," Fury started.

"Then an angry call from your boyfriend," Coulson finished.

"Aww, love dove cares," Tony breathed out as he found the closest chair and plopped into it.

"Don't call me that," Loki growled as he half jogged into the room. "I only called them because I wouldn't be able to teleport close enough in time, not with the power I used in the last battle." He stood in front of Tony and instantly started checking him over. He put a hand to his head, then it started to glow. It moved to Tony's chest, and finally to Tony's stomach, and stayed there for a few extra moments.

"If it makes a difference I had planned on telling you about this little visit." Loki shot Tony a small glare that told him it didn't matter. "I've got some news that the three of you are going to love."

"Better than the special display of powers you put on?" Fury asked, crossing his arms. Loki raised his eyebrows to look at Tony.

"Powers? Are you okay?" Loki instantly asked. Not even Coulson was used to this display of affection that Loki was showing, and he liked to visit often. With Pepper of course.

"I'm fine," Tony waved his hands away. "I think my new Asgardian roots were showing, that's all. I think I know why Thor went back to Asgard." Tony tapped his reactor a few times with one finger. "He's looking for this, thinks I took it."

"He's looking for your reactor?" Fury raised his eyebrow, but Loki's eyes had widened.

"He's looking for the tesseract that he stole," Tony explained. Coulson went still, and Fury's good eye started to twitch. "Somewhere along the way he lost here, and he thought I had taken it and put it in my chest."

"If it is on Midgard again," Loki said quietly and Tony waved his hand to tell him to stop.

"I distinctly remember a certain King promising me that this would not come back to bite me in the ass," Tony stated, looking more at Loki. "My ass hurts."

"If he can't find it then you can first, right?" Fury asked. "You and Banner found it the first time."

"I'm more interested in why he thinks it's your arc reactor," Coulson wondered.

"That's why you make the big bucks," Tony pointed at Coulson. "When the tesseract was destroyed two years ago I gave up one of my old, outdated for me, reactors to store the power in." He didn't always keep his old things around, but after a certain episode with Obie he liked having back ups. "The arc reactor doesn't work up in Asgard, so it was a hunk of metal up there."

"Now that it is down here, it has the added power of your science," Loki finished. "That power almost destroyed your suit last time."

"So let's not imagine if someone else got their hands on it down here," Fury muttered. "You can get those algorithms searching, right Stark?"

"JARVIS is already on it," Tony leaned back in the chair a little. "All this excitement can not be good for, me," Tony caught himself before announcing his own little surprise.

"Or the baby," Coulson announced, smirking.

"I'm not gonna be here for this conversation again." Fury held up his hands and started to walk away. "I'm not even believing it, so leave me out of this. Find that tesseract, Stark!" Fury growled as he left the room. Coulson rocked back on his heels a little.

"If you need any help, I watch a lot of Super Nanny." Tony was staring at him, desperately confused.

"How the hell did you even know?"

"You didn't check the medical for any new bugs lately, did you?" Coulson just grinned before leaving the room. "You're secret is safe with me!"

* * *

 

Tony was already working away on the computers when they others got back and seemed to file into the lab. The bookcase on the side of the room was on the floor and there was a black scorch mark on the wall from Tony's repulsor blast. Loki was sitting in a chair next to Tony, his feet in Tony's lap, head turned to the side asleep. Tony looked over and put a finger to his lips.

"Seriously takes the guy forever to get to sleep," Tony whispered as the four wandered over to him.

"What happened? Why did Loki disappear so fast?" Steve whispered, glancing at the sleeping god.

"There was a small emergency," Tony shrugged a little. "I'm of course down playing it. The guy from Italy has stolen the tesseract, the one that looks like my arc reactor. So now that it's here on earth it has a little added punch to it."

"You're running our algorithm from before?" Bruce asked and slipped his glasses on looking at the screen.

"And running a scan for the energy from the reactor itself," Tony nodded. He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. "So how was Seattle?"

"Better than it was before," Clint quipped. "Not that we got to see much of it."

"Hey, I didn't get to see any of it," Tony pointed at him.

"You were in Italy for three weeks," Natasha reminded.

"Italy is not Seattle," Tony smirked.

"No matter how quiet you all talk, I can still hear every mundane word that comes out of your mouths," Loki muttered, not moving.

"Someone's a little testy when they wake up," Clint shot back and Loki opened his eyes to glare at the archer. Tony pat Loki's leg a few times before he slipped them back down to the floor.

"Everything relatively normal down here for now guys," Tony looked at the group. "But you're concern over my well-being is touching, thanks for coming to check on me."

"We came to see where Loki went," Natasha retorted and Tony glared at her. "I guess it's a good thing that you're okay."

"Okay, you all can leave now," Tony shooed them with his hands as Natasha chuckled. She grabbed Clint's arm and they left first, with Steve right behind them. Bruce lingered a bit until the others were out of sight and earshot. "I'm fine Bruce," Tony reassured. "Loki has probably checked me over at least a dozen times."

"Well, good," Bruce nodded. "Although I was going to see if you wanted to know if you two were going to have a boy or girl." Tony sat up a little and Loki raised an eyebrow.

"You're machines can tell us that?" Loki questioned. Loki admired Midgard the most, at the moment, for their steps in childcare.

"Unless you two wanted to wait-" Tony stood up first.

"I wanna know is JB stands for Jessica or Joshua," Tony declared. "Those are not the names we've decided on, just for the record."

"We haven't decided on any names," Loki corrected as he walked up next to Tony. Bruce rolled his eyes and started to head for the medical bay, the two soon to be parents behind him.

* * *

 

Tony sighed again as he slipped on his Asgardian jacket. It had been a month, a quiet month, since they found out the tesseract had been stolen. And that was already 27 days too long for Tony to not have found any trace of the the tesseract or his arc reactor. Bruce had helped three separate times to change the equations.

"You're using palladium in this search?" Bruce had asked one day.

"The first reactors were made with palladium," Tony explained.

"That can be awfully leathal," Bruce had glanced over at Tony who grimaced a little.

"And painful," he muttered. "Which is why I re-synthesized a brand new element." Tony tapped his chest.

"Which is why the scanning only picks up a slight source of your current reactor," Bruce nodded a little. It made sense as to why Tony couldn't exactly test it on the piece in his chest; it wouldn't pick anything up that it was designed to sense for.

"It's been two weeks," Tony had then rounded on him. "I wanna know if it's a boy or a girl." Bruce raised an eyebrow. After the two had continued bickering about names Bruce had purposely misguided the scanning so they couldn't tell the sex of the baby.

"I guess you are due for another check up anyway," Bruce smirked a little.

Tony found out that Natasha was not going to be happy with another boy around the Avengers.

"It just feels like something isn't adding up," Tony murmured when Loki walked in the room.

"It isn't, but you need some time away from the lab," Loki told him. "JARVIS will let you know if something were to pop up. All your calculations are correct, you know that." He rubbed Tony's shoulders a little and the man dropped his head down letting out a little moan. "Maybe if you ask nicely Fenrir will let you lie against his tail. His fur is quite soft and warm," Loki smiled and Tony snorted.

"JARVIS, you'll let me know the millisecond that something happens with the calculations?" Tony could already feel Loki building up the traveling spell.

"Without hesitation, sir. I am of a mind to agree with Mr Loki that you need a break," the AI told it's master. "That is before Br Banner puts you on bedrest."

"Let's go before I get angry at my supposedly non-sentient housekeeper," Tony grumbled, taking Loki's hand.

Fenrir instantly greeted Loki when he saw the two men walk around the corner of the outcropping. He pushed against Loki's hand, then against his side and Loki laughed as he started to scratch behind his ears. Tony smiled as he watched the two interact. When Fenrir turned and nudge his nose against Tony's hand he blinked, but reached up to scratch Fenrir's ear.

"You're nothing but a big puppy," Tony teased. Fenrir opened one eye to look at him as Tony's scratched. "Okay, one that stands taller than I do, but a big puppy none the less, my point still stands." Fenrir snorted. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to use your side as something to lean against." Fenrir eyed him then moved to lay down for Tony.

Loki watched as Fenrir let Tony get comfortable against his side before he took a seat in front of the large wolf. The wolf had noticed that Tony looked tired, and neither one of them were surprised when he fell asleep minutes later.

Tony was content to visit Fenrir with Loki, even if he couldn't understand how the two communicated. Loki spoke in an old language while it appeared that Fenrir didn't speak at all. Loki had explained, vaguely, that there are some connections that even Aesir can not explain.

"Hmm, yes, I plan on taking him up to Asgard after this," Loki explained as he followed Fenrir's gaze to Tony. "While I trust the mortal down here enough to look after him, he is not versed in Asgardian ways."

"Not that this is exactly normal even for an Asgardian," Fenrir said looking back at Loki. "You are still very cautious about this." Loki merely nodded and Fenrir leaned his head down, putting his nose in Loki's lap. "You are a good father, insane though you are."

Loki laughed and put a hand on Fenrir's nose. "And I thought Hela would be the only one to call me insane." Fenrir's snorted, blowing Loki's jacket back a little. "Even Tony has yet to voice this thought."

"Because he is as insane as you are," Fenrir pointed out. "This is why you two are still together." Loki smirked a little as he absently rubbed the wolfs nose, staring off and thinking. Until Loki felt Fenrir tense under his hand. He looked down and saw that Fenrir was looking past him.

Loki turned then quickly stood up when he saw several shadows on the ground, with no owners attached to them. Fenrir had started to growl and Tony blinked his eyes open slowly. Fenrir's tail had moved to cover Tony and Loki's hands started to glow with several spells already under his skin.

"Did I miss something?" Tony yawned a little.

"Don't move," Loki told him as he watched two of the shadows stand from the ground, taking a shape, but no features. Loki threw a dagger before lifting a shield with his hand to block the shadow that launched itself at them. The dagger went through the other figure and Loki glared.

Tony had pushed himself up but Fenrir used his tail to keep him close to the wolf's body as Loki worked his magic. He shivered a little when he thought he felt the temperature drop more than usual and looked around, finally settling on the ice that Loki was producing in his hand.

Loki had tried to trap the figures to the ground but they walked through all of his spells like they were nothing more than air. He huffed and started to draw on the ice magic of his Jotun blood. He hefted a smaller ice pike then launched it when a third shadow figure appeared from the ground. It still went through the shadow but it slowed it down, almost as if it were trying to make it solid. Loki blinked.

"Tony," Loki whipped his head around quickly. "Go to Asgard, now." Tony frowned and noticed that Loki's hand had turned blue, and was staying blue. Loki had winced a little and started to back up when the shadows started pushing back on his shield.

"You're kidding right?" Tony stared at the god. "You're going to need some backup if they get past you, and I can help Fenrir with that."

Loki pushed himself back as he tried to raised another shield when the first was destroyed. Fenrir was now and was snapping at the figures, giving them enough reason to hang back slightly. Loki turned to looked at Tony, his eyes turning red.

"I will not let you put yourself in that position," Loki growled. "What I plan on doing you will most assuredly not survive." Tony saw the breath coming from his nose turn in fog.

Two of the shadows had gotten past Fenrir and Loki moved his hand, ice traveling up the ground to try and trap them. Loki's hands moved in front of his chest and a large blue relic appeared in his hands. The ice started to crack quickly as the figures moved. Loki turned and whispered words under his breath.

"Don't you dare!" Tony could feel tingling around him as Loki threw the spell at him. He saw on the shadows tackle Loki as the other jumped at him, before he disappeared.

Tony took a deep breath when his surroundings changed to that of Asgard. He would be thankful later that it wasn't the throne room and just a gathering room, that held about a dozen gods lounging about. Tony would be happy when he saw Sif hurry towards him as he felt his knees start to give out at the sudden transportation.

"Anthony?" He grabbed one of his arms as he steadied himself.

"Where's Thor?" Tony breathed out as they left the room.

"In the Great Hall," Sif said. "You're unnaturally cold, Anthony."

"Yeah, I know," he turned the corner, happy that he had an photographic memory. "I have to talk to Thor, it's about Loki and the tesseract."

"The tesseract?" Now Sif was even more confused. "The tesseract is still very well hidden." Tony stopped short and looked at her.

"But I thought he came back to Asgard last month to search for it," Tony said, shaking off the knot he felt in his stomach.

"He did not tell you why he came back?" Sif raised her eyebrows a little. "He came back because the Allfather has entered the Odinsleep. Thor has come to help rule with his mother."

Tony frowned and blinked, swallowing thickly. He leaned a little more against Sif when he felt all his thoughts swim around his mind too fast. "You do not look well, I am taking you to the Healers." She started to lead him away even as he shook his head.

"No, I can't," he breathed out. "There's too much happening, I need to talk to Thor." Tony needed to help Loki before he could focus on the problem with the tesseract and Skir. He put a hand on his stomach as the knot seemed to grow bigger and tighter.

"Thor can come to you," Sif insisted. "You have lost much of your color now." Tony wasn't paying much attention to her.

Why would Skir claim to have the tesseract if it was still protected by Asgard? If he didn't have it then how did he know that it looked like the arc reactor? He had insisted that Tony look for it, he would have gone so far as to kidnap Tony to make sure he found it. No. Tony frowned.

Skir had accepted all too easily that the reactor in Tony's chest wasn't the one he was looking for. Then he had demanded that Tony find it. Tony being one of the few that knew where it was in the first place, and could possibly get him access to it if it were still on Asgard.

"The bastard played me," Tony said to himself. He had noticed that they had stopped moving but they had made it the Healers rooms. Tony turned to look at Sif and she threw a hand over his mouth. He followed her eyes and saw two unconscious guards on the floor and the doors to the throne room open.

Sonofabitch.

* * *

 

  
Loki took a breath as he slumped against Fenrir's side, his skin shifting quickly from blue back to his pale Asgardian color. Fenrir had moved them back inside the cave he usually slept in to keep him away from the small blizzard that Loki had created. It had done exactly what the God of Mischief had wanted though.

Loki had used toe casket to freeze the outcropping and makes the shadows solid. It took far too long for his own liking but they had cleared out the enemies. He could feel Fenrir shiver slightly, but knew that there would be no lasting damage to either one of them.

"How long do you think it's been on Asgard?" Loki asked Fenrir, still trying to catch his breath.

"At least half a day, if the flow of time has not changed, again," Fenrir replied.

"Plenty of time for Tony to become angry with me," Fenrir snorted and Loki smiled slightly.

"You should go find him, this cave shall be warm enough for me." Fenrir looked over to Loki, then nudged his side. "I know that you see him."

"I shall be back." Loki scratched Fenrir one more time before traveling to Asgard. He appeared outside the throne room and blinked when he saw the door were haphazardly open, and many a guard on the floor. Quickly cloaking himself he ran inside, until an echoing call stopped him in his tracks.

"I will find you Anthony!" Loki turned on his heel when he heard Skir's voice sounding through the halls. "There are only so many places you can hide!"

Loki could feel the remnants of various spells floating through the halls. He turned a corner then stopped when he felt something in his chest. Turning the other way down the hall he ran towards Odin's weapon vault.

Loki could feel the wards and spells against the doors when he came up to them and took a breath. He recognized most of them as Odin's original spells, but sensed that a couple came from Frigga and Tony. He pushed his consciousness past the spells and when he opened his eyes he was inside the room, staring at the end of Thor's hammer. His eyes widened a little and he took a step back.

"Brother!" Thor pulled the hammer back and pulled him into his arms, then started to pull him down the stairs. Loki looked down to where a new Destroyer stood over two figures. He saw Tony's head resting in Frigga's lap as she held his hand.

Loki hurried past Thor and knelt down next to Tony and Frigga. Tony looked over at Loki and smiled. "What took you so long?" He sat up slowly. His cheeks were flushed and his skin was little paler than usually, but he didn't look hurt.

"What's happening?" Loki asked Frigga and Thor, but kept his attention on Tony, running a glowing hand over his lover.

"Skir has come for the tesseract, but he comes with a borrowed power," Thor informed him. "We were unprepared for it, but he seems to have turned his attentions to Tony."

"He is very stressed," Frigga said softly, explaining why Tony looked pale.

"He played me," Tony's eyes grew dark. "He was there, with the shadows, and he hitched a ride." Loki frowned a little. "Skir knew that if you attacked you wouldn't let me fight, and if we were anywhere of consequence that you'd send me to Asgard. He played me." Tony growled out again. "Bastard never had the tesseract! But he knew where to find it, and he knew that I Made it."

Loki took Tony's other hand as Frigga squeazed the hand she was still holding. Loki could tell that Tony was angry, and Tony had a habit of working himself up. Tony groaned and dropped his head back and Frigga guided it back to her lap.

"You need to try and stay calm, dear," she soothed, running a hand through his hair int he way only a mother can. Loki frowned a little as he watched Tony. Both he and Thor looked back towards the closed door when they heard the yelling getting closer.

"I never should have left the lab," Tony groaned out. He opened his eyes to look at Loki. "I have a bad feeling about today."

"You have a bad feeling about any day that doesn't start with sex," Loki pointedly told him.

"I repeat, I have a bad feeling about today." Tony closed his eyes. "I've been told that I need to say calm. Why don't you and Thor go smack that guy around a bit? For me?" Loki hummed, tapping his chin a little in thought. "For JB?"

"With pleasure," Loki smirked and bit at Tony's fingers before standing up. Thor looked at him, Mjolnir in hand, and the brothers headed for the door. Loki cloaked his presence as the doors to the vault opened and they approached Skir as the man walked down the hall.

"I should have known that you would hide with the other relics," Skir said to Thor, sparks dancing at his fingertips. "Has the little inventor decided to give up the secrets of the tesseract for me yet? Or must I give him more cause to see things my way?"

"He has not the authority to hand over the tesseract," Thor boomed, stopping as Skir did. Loki stayed to the side, still walking ahead. "You will not bother him any longer."

"Is that a command from the acting King of Asgard?" Skir smirked a little, and Loki stopped when he thought he saw Skir glance in his direction. "I am disinclined to follow such a request, as I am not a citizen of Asgard. I would have a couple of demands that I would like to make, though." Skir flicked his wrist out towards Loki who suddenly appeared. "I do not like to be stalked."

"And I don't like to be attacked," Loki growled.

"Hm, yes, I would assume you didn't like that I put the ones you love the most in danger," Skir smirked at him. "How does your beast of a son fair? Better than the one that's soon to come I would think. Tell me, do you expect this one to be killed or cursed?" Loki phazed out and in front of Skir, grabbing the mans jacket. Skir only smirked as Loki felt the tingling of power come from the man. "Was that upsetting?"

Loki suddenly gasped when he felt the strange power arc through his body, starting from his hands, but he didn't let go of Skir. He grit his teeth and jerked Skir, throwing him into the wall. The man merely chuckled and caught himself as Loki took a step back, shaking off the excess power from his hands.

"I've been denied by the people here, and I've been denied by your lover," Skir spit out, looking at Loki. "Will you deny me what I seek? What if i give you a little incentive?" Skir gestured back towards the Vault and Loki's breath caught when he heard a pained shout coming from Tony. "It's still a bit early-" Skir was cut off when Mjolnir smashed into his chest, pushing him to the ground.

Loki's gaze snapped over to Thor who was walking over to Skir. "Go," Thor told him and Loki started to run back to the room. Thor stood over Skir who coughed as he laughed with the hammer sitting on his chest.

"We will get the power," Skir spit out looking at Thor. "Do not think that I am the only one, this goes deeper than any mortal or god knows."

"I'm sure we will hear about it when you tire of screaming in the prisons."

* * *

 

Loki practically flew back down the stairs of the vault to see that Frigga was trying to keep Tony calm, who was bunching up in pain. "I told you it was gonna be a bad day," Tony bit out when Loki was close enough.

"He needs to get to the healers, but this will not have opened their doors yet," Frigga looked up at her younger son.

"I will get him there," Loki took both of Tony's hands and they both disappeared as quickly as Loki had run in. He made sure that Tony landed in a bed, startling a couple of the healers who had wasted no time hurrying over to the man in pain, and shuffling Loki out depsite his very vocal protests.

Thor and Frigga found Loki pacing outside the rooms several hours later. None of the healers wanted to deal with the god as he had snapped at every person who had come to tell him that he still couldn't come back.

"It is my fault that he is even in this situation," Loki bit out as Thor approached him. "What if there is some kind of complication that presents itself? I should be back there to make sure-" He stopped talking when Thor placed his hands on Loki's shoulders.

"You will only make them more nervous when all their attention needs to be focused on Tony," Thor informed him. "I am sure that-"

"You can both come back," Frigga interrupted them. The brothers looked at her, unaware that she had simply floated past them and into the rooms. "Anthony is requesting that you stop upsetting the healers." Loki scoffed a little but pulled away from Thor and walked quickly past his mother.

"Are you done worrying now?" Tony voice floating out before Loki even stepped inside the room. "Because you sure made everyone nervous in here." Loki opened his mouth to retaliate when a healer stepped in front of him, a small blanketed bundle in her arms. She smiled and held her arms out to Loki who accepted it gently.

Loki lifted the blankets a little to see an arm poke up. The newborn boy turned in the blanket, showing off a shock of dark hairs on his head. He let out a breath as he watched the restless child in his arms, then looked up at Tony.

"He's going to have the Stark charm," Tony grinned, looking decidedly tired.

"He's also going to be as short as you, also," Loki teased.

"A newphew!" Thor grinned as he and his mother walked in. "He shall be handsome and talented and a force to be reckoned with!"

"For once, I couldn't agree more," Tony said through a yawn. "Now, fawn over my child while I sleep, feed my ego through dreams." Tony seem to melt into the bed as he put a hand behind his head. He looked at Loki, smiling softly. "By the way, he needs a name," Tony yawned and closed his eyes.

* * *

 

"You had better dress him in green and gold," Tony said as he watched Loki attempt to make their sons first set of Asgardian clothes. He knew that all the clothes back in the mansions were set, he had picked them out himself. Mostly to annoy Loki. "Red and green will make him look like a badly wrapped christmas present."

Loki glanced over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. He waved a hand and the small outfit turned to green and gold. Tony leaned over over and sighed a little. "He looks exactly like you, even down to his clothes now."

"I do believe that someone is jealous," Loki smirked as he picked up the wide eyed boy. His little legs kicked a little as he looked into Loki's green eyes with his natural baby blues. "I am fairly certain that he will have your eyes when he grows into them."

There was a light knock on the door and it opened slowly. The two men looked over and saw Hela's head peek in. Her eyes seemed to spark when she saw the baby and she slid in. "Is that him?" She asked quietly. Tony walked over and took her arm leading her over.

"For someone who rules over the dead, you sure seem nervous over a little one," Tony teased.

"Not as nervous as you," she countered leaning over Loki's arm. "He is incredibly small."

"Would you like to hold him? We have a short time before the ceremony," Loki smiled at his daughter. She eagerly nodded and her eyes lit up. Loki gently slid his son into her arms and she grinned. "What is his name? I can not wait for the ceremony to hear it."

"He has two names," Tony said. He remembered that it had taken them two days to decide since he would need a formal Asgardian name, (he had been outnumbered three to one) and a Midgardian name. "Leo Anthony Stark," Tony grinned at the name.

"And Leo Lokison," Loki finished. "There was no way I was going to allow him to be named Tonyson." Hela scrunched her face up at the sound of the name.

"He is a worthy brother," Hela smiled at the boy that was reaching a hand out to her face. "I shall keep an on eye on him should he ever cross my sights." She handed him to Tony who instantly bumped his nose to Leo's, cause him bubble at the lips. They were pretty sure that was his happy face. "I shall see you both after the ceremony." Hela took a glance at Leo one more time before gliding out of the room.

"While I desire to Never go through this again, I will admit that I'm not as frightened anymore," Tony said as he let Leo take one of his fingers in his tiny fist. "I am not the most confident, but seeing him here, actually in my arms, I guess there was a little part of me that was ready for a family."

Loki came up behind Tony and wrapped an arm around his waist. "But not to settle down yet," Loki smirked a little. "Come, Thor has requested we not be late. More so demanded, actually." Tony bit his lip a little and nodded as Loki started to guide him out of the room.

They walked into the great hall, overflowing with gods, and nymphs, and everyone from the Nine Realms that dared to travel to Asgard. Tony felt a little overwhelmed, but just started to think of it as the biggest gala event he had attended. Tony Stark was a natural showman.

Both Tony and Loki were surprised to see Odin walked down the stairs to great them. They were unaware that he had awoken from the Odinsleep, but Loki was secretly proud that it was Odin that looked pleased to be able to perform this ceremony.

Odin struck his staff on the ground once and the people in the hall quieted as the new parents stood in front of him. "Honred guests," Odin's voice carried across the room easily. "Today we welcome a new citizen of Asgard." The hall erupted in cheers for a second. "And my newest grandson." Loki's hand had tightened a little on Tony's hip and Tony didn't try to hide to hide the grin that crossed his face.

Odin let go of the staff, as it stayed upright, and he walked over to gently take Leo from Tony's arms. He held the child up and smiled, little booted feet kicking back and forth lazily. As he settled Leo into one arm he reached out and two small green medallions appeared in his hand. He place one on each lapel of the little jacket that he was wearing. Tony noted that Loki had a thing for layers and intended to continue that tradition for many years to come.

"Leo Lokison of Asgard, Leo Anthony Stark of Midgard," Odin announced. "I welcome you as a member of the House of Odin." The sound was in the hall was deafening and Tony almost jumped. He laughed a little when Loki pinched his side. Leo looked at Odin and scrunched up his face a little then started to gurgle bubbles at his lips.

Tony got a shiver down his back and frowned a little looking around the room. Loki turned his head to look at Tony who merely shrugged. As he turned his head back to the front his eyes caught sight of a man in the crowd, eye so grey they were nearly white. He was looking at Tony and Loki, clapping politely with the other people, but Tony had caught him staring. When he blinked the man was gone and Tony blinked, before slowly turning his attention back to the front as Loki stepped forward to take Leo back in his arms.

Loki looked at Tony, a genuine smile on his face as he held Leo, and Tony couldn't help but return the expression. He could think about the man later. Right now he had a new family to think about.

* * *

 

"I'm sure that they aren't gong to be thrilled at all," Tony said as he and Loki appeared in the workshop in New York. They had been gone for three Earth days, only sending a message that they had captured Skir in Asgard.

Tony was holding onto a sleeping Leo, who didn't seem to mind the trip. "We never did tell them," Tony continued. "And then we just show up with a sudden new born."

"Who is almost two weeks old now," Loki pointed out. "I could have taken us back to Malibu first, as I assume that is where we will be traveling after we talk with the other Avengers."

"You better believe it," Tony nodded. "It's about to start snowing here and I'm not taking care of a new born in winter. You'll be the one waking up to go give him some cold medicine." He gently adjusted his arms when Leo had started to roll a little. "JARVIS? Is Bruce around?"

"Welcome back, sir," the AI replied first. "He is in his room. Would you like me to alert him?"

"No, that's okay," Tony shook his head as Loki opened the workshop door for him. "JARVIS, this is our new addition," he continued as they headed for the elevator. "Leo Anthony Stark, or Leo Lokison, depending on who you're asking."

"Congratulations sir. Shall I start making the necessary arrangements with the state department?" Leave it to an AI that Tony built to start thinking about important details first.

"Pull up the paperwork, but save it. Loki and I will going back to the Malibu mansion later today." As Tony looked down at the sleeping boy in his arms, his son, he was glad that they arrived at roughly the same time of day as Asgard. It wouldn't set off the schedule of Leo's nap and feeding. He suddenly had a lot of changes to make to his own personal schedule.

He hadn't been paying attention until Loki had pushed his shoulder a little, telling him that the elevator had stopped. "You'll need to stop spacing out," Loki whispered in his ear as they headed for Bruce's room. "You'll end up missing things." Tony waved his off and knocked on the bedroom door.

The door opened and Bruce was pushing up his glasses, looking like he had just woken up from some research that he had fallen asleep on. "I thought I- Oh. Oh!" His eyes widened a little when he saw who exactly was standing at his door. His eyes then fell on Leo.

"Morning to you, too," Tony chuckled a little. "We thought since you were the only one who knew we'd bring you to meet your godson."

"Godson?" Bruce's eyes snapped back up to Tony. He blinked, letting his mind return to full speed. "You want me to be Godfather?"

"Only if you play it clean," Tony warned him. "I don't wanna see any horses heads in my bed or anything." Bruce pursed his lips a little and Tony smirked. "Yeah, you and Thor are the Godparents."

"I had to agree after Tony explained to me what godparents actually were," Loki spoke up. "We have no such thing on Asgard so it was a foreign concept to us. Needless to say that Thor was even more excited about the prospect."

"We're gonna be heading back to Malibu in a little bit, get everything settled here, but we wanted to come here first." Tony saw Bruce looking at Leo again. "Do you wanna hold him?"

"Yes, Tony might relinquish his attentions from Leo for a minute or so," Loki smirked, teasing.

"Oh, I don't know. It's been a while since I've held a baby. I can't actually remember the last time I held one, actually," Bruce rubbed the back of his neck. "It might have been in Calcutta, but she was much older than Leo."

"Oh, come on Uncle Bruce," Tony grinned. Leo rolled a little in Tony's arms, snuffling his nose a little as he prepared to wake up. "See, he's gonna wake up just enough for you to hold him. how can you say no to that?"

"If possible, you seem to have become even more insufferable," Loki told the man, not unkindly. "I fear that a child in your arms is actually an effective weapon."

"And don't you forget it." Tony waggled an eyebrow before turning his attention back to Bruce. "Just have to cradle your arms, and I'll slip him in there. I know you're curious, I can see the science behind your eyes."

Bruce huffed at Tony a little before taking Leo from Tony slowly. "He certainly is going to look a lot like Loki as he grows up. I can see it in his bone structure already." Bruce smiled then snorted a little at a thought. "The product of a god and one demi-god, and Tony Stark. Who would have thought such an adorable thing could come from you."

"Who ever thought that anything Other than something adorable and handsome could come from me has not met me," Tony crossed his arms. Leo sleepily opened his eyes to look up at Bruce and he could see flecks of brown in his eyes. Bruce knew that this was going to be a special little boy in every way possible.

"When are you going to tell the others? And Fury?" Bruce handed Leo back to Loki when he started to wiggle a little too much for Bruce's comfort level.

"Probably next week," Tony answered. "We wanna get things settled down a little, come up with some kind of cover story for the press, tell Pepper about it," Tony mumbled the last part. "fury already kind of knows about it though." Bruce raised an eyebrow. "Apparently the Med Bay is bugged, and they heard our 4 am conversation all that time ago. He and Coulson both know."

"Well, that should make things a little easier then." Bruce nodded a little and crossed his arms, leaning about the archway of his door. "Although I am a little curious how you're covering this, legally I mean. It would cause quite a stir if you claimed the truth." Bruce couldn't help but smirk. "I assume not adoption."

Tony shook his head quickly. "No. I'm still working out the kinks. I'm also gonna have to ask Pepper for advice, when I tell her. She's better with the whole press thing, because there is no way I'll be able to avoid the press on this."

"Let's hope he doesn't mind cameras," Loki commented, bouncing Leo in one of his arms. Leo was watching his Daddy talk to the other man with wide eyes as his Dad bounced him. He opened his mouth and let out a noise, then burred his lips when he heard the sound change as he went up and down. He opened his mouth and continued to make the noise as Loki kept bouncing.

All three men turned to look at Leo. "I am so glad this is your baby," Bruce laughed. "Take your bundle of odd and get going before the others come up here. I'll be sleeping." He chuckled and walked back into his room.

"None of my other children ever made that sound," Loki watched Leo even though he didn't stop bouncing. He could tell the child enjoyed it. "It must be from your genes," Loki accused Tony who's jaw dropped.

* * *

 

Tony sat on the bed in Malibu and watched Leo on the floor with one of his many new toys. He was on his back and reaching for small plastic pieces hanging from an arch. It was one of the many recommended toys that he get for a baby when he went shopping for it all over a month ago. He had bought a lot, he was nervous.

As Leo grabbed on the plastic stars and pulled it down to put in his mouth Tony smirked a little. "JARVIS, call Pepper." The AI didn't responded as the call was placed, and picked up almost immediately.

"Tony?" Her voice asked urgently over the phone. "Are you back now? Bruce told me that you went to Asgard, and-"

"Pep, I'm fine," Tony chuckled a little. "Where are you right now? Are you in New York or Malibu?"

"Malibu, but I'm about to catch a plane back to New York to see you," Pepper replied and he could hear her stacking papers together.

"That'll be a long trip, I'm at the Malibu mansion. Wanna help me babysit?" Leo blinked when the star on a stretchy cord bounced from his grip and waved back and forth a little in the air before he grabbed for it again. "Loki went to go see some of his kids, tell them we were back and all," he had gone to tell Fenrir about what had happened, and about Leo, "and I might need some help later on."

"Babysit? Tony, who do you know that has a child, and why on earth would you agree to babysit them?" Pepper sounded confused. "You've never shown an interest in kids."

"I know, that's the funny part." He slid down onto the floor as Leo started to kick his legs. He started to tickle Leo's feet and he let out a squeal suddenly.

Pepper gasped a little. "Oh my god, there is a baby there. I'm on my way." She hung up and Tony blinked a little.

"JARVIS, did she sound concerned there?" He reached for Leo's feet again and the little boy put a hand in his mouth as he kicked his feet back and forth.

"It sounded as though there was concern for the baby, sir." Tony was going to start looking into taking away some of JARVIS's personality.

"She doesn't trust me to take care of a child?" Tony put a hand on his chest in dramatic flair. "I'm hurt, really I am."

"To be honest sir, I wouldn't have trust you with a child, sir." Tony's hand fell as his face deadpanned.

"You trust me, don't ya little guy?" He leaned over to look at Leo. He blew a few spit bubbles with his hand in his mouth and Tony raised an eyebrow. He grabbed the little towel that was over his shoulder and started to wipe at Leo's face. "Well, at least Loki trusts me alone with you. I'll take that as consolation."

When Pepper came running through the door Tony was in the kitchen, Leo in his arm as they watched the microwave heat up his bottle. Leo was scooped from Tony's arms and he turned in surprise.

"Oh you poor thing, how long have you been left with this man?" She cooed to the child who blinked wider eyes at her. "You haven't been drinking around him have you?" Pepper narrowed her eyes at Tony, who's own eyes went about as wide as Leo's.

"Pep, I haven't had a drink in months," Tony argued. Pepper looked between Tony and Leo, noting the similar expression, but writing it off quickly. The microwave beeped and he grabbed he reached in gently to grab the bottle, gripping it more when it wasn't as warm as he was expecting. As he tested the temperature on his arm Pepper watched him, amazed.

"Why does it look like you know what you're doing?" She accused with narrowed eyes. Leo had tried to turn his body to get a look at his bottle. Tony offered the bottle to Pepper and she took it as Leo reached his hands out for it. As she guided it took his mouth Tony had grabbed a clean towel and put it over Pepper's shoulder.

"Because I actually have a small inkling of what I'm doing," Tony told her, leaning back against the counter, smirking. "His name is Leo by the way. And I think that you holding him is the perfect way for me to tell you whose baby he is."

Pepper couldn't help but smiled as she watched the little boy take a couple of drinks the gasp for breath before repeating the process. "He almost resembles Loki from this angle," she commented.

"Oh, he will from any angle," Tony told her. Pepper looked up at him. "So, remember when we were in Italy?"

"Oh my god, you two had some kind of weird three way and got a woman pregnant didn't you?" Her voice was low, then she blinked. "Wait, the time doesn't add up."

"No, no it doesn't. Although I'm going to suggest that idea to Loki sometime, maybe he'd be up for it." Tony scratched at his chin a little. "Think Coulson would let you have sex with a couple of gods." Pepper shot him a look that made him quickly drop the idea. "Anyway, no, that's not what happened." Now Tony had started to play with his fingers and Pepper knew he was nervous.

"Tony, I'm sure whatever it is, it can't be that bad." She had been through a lot with Tony, there was very little that could surprise her, but she wouldn't put it past him to try.

"Remember I told you about that wayward spell? The one causing me so much pain, yada yada," he waved his hands a little and she nodded. "Okay, well, seems that it went a little more awry than we thought. And now Loki and I have a baby," he rushed the last sentence out.

Pepper blinked a little and looked down at Leo, who was finishing his bottle quickly. She narrowed her eyes a little as she studied Leo then back to Tony. "But, when did, you made, what?"

Tony took the bottle when Leo had let go of it and it seemed that Pepper was a little distracted by her thoughts. Tony took Leo and placed his against his shoulder and the towel and started to pat the boys back. "You're my trial run, because this is gonna sound stupid, and probably really embarrassing for me. I may or may not have carried this cute little bundle, and it was really weird, and I was freaking terrified, but it made Loki worried and that was amusing to watch, and Thor knew too, because apparently Loki can carry babies too and in fact has, and Leo is ours," he finished lamely.

Pepper blinked and sat down on one of the stools. "Tony, I thought you said you hadn't had a drink in months?" Leo let out a couple burps, but not the big one Tony was looking for.

"I can confirm this, Miss Potts," JARVIS spoke up. "I can also confirm that Mr Stark did in fact-"

"Thanks JARVIS," Tony didn't wanna hear everything that the AI would have said. Leo let out a loud burp and Tony grinned. When he pulled Leo back his smile fell as he saw the milk starting to dribble from the corner of his mouth. "I was hoping we could have it this time without needing to be cleaned up, kiddo." Tony grabbed the towel and started to clean his face.

Pepper watched Tony and blinked. This was not the same Tony Stark that she had worked for for over a decade. This wasn't even the same Tony Stark that she had known after he said that he was in love. "Anthony Stark," Tony's quickly looked up and over at Pepper. "You're actually a father. That is your child, and you actually know how to take care of him. Oh my god, you're a family man now."

Tony blinked then smiled when he looked back at Leo, who was doing his best to make milk bubbles. "Yeah, I am. The apocalypse must be coming."

"Not yet," they both turned when they heard Loki's voice coming in. He took off his jacket and placed it on one of the chairs. "I'll let you know when I decide to bring Ragnarok about." He walked over and dropped a kiss on Leo's head, and Pepper couldn't help but smile as she watched the very unlikely family in front of her.

* * *

 

Tony flipped through some of the papers on his desk down in the workshop. It seemed that Fury had helped put a rush on getting Leo recognized as an actual person, meaning that Pepper was going to be doing some damage control soon. He also found out at what price it cost to have Fury help out.

"Sir, you have visitors," JARVIS sounded when he heard some knocking at the glass door to the workshop. He turned and saw five familiar faces, one looking a bit sheepish, staring at him. Fury had let the rest of the Avengers know. Thor waved enthusiastically.

"Any chance we can just them out there?" Tony murmured as he stacked the papers together and slipped them back into the envelope they came in.

"I'm afraid not sir," JARVIS replied. "They seem to be standing there out of courtesy, in truth the door has been unlocked for some time." Tony groaned and waved a hand and the five heroes walked in.

"Bruce won't tell us where this baby came from," Clint instantly said, looking at Tony. "But he says it's the reason why you weren't able to come out on missions."

"Where is my nephew?" Thor looked around. "I wish to greet him."

"He's taking a nap upstairs with Loki," Tony turned in the chair, leaning back a little. He glanced at his watch. "Give him about fifteen minutes and they'll both be up." Even if Leo was still little less than a month old he had already fallen into some kind of sleeping and eating pattern. Both parents were okay with this.

"So Loki has another kid?" Natasha questioned. Steve was looking extremely confused by the whole situation.

"According to the public though, he's your son," Steve threw in. "Director Fury said his name was Leo Anthony Stark."

"It's a fine name, isn't it?" Tony grinned. He'd continue grinning every time someone said his sons name.

"On Asgard he is known as Leo Lokison," Thor put on his proud Uncle smile.

"So if he's Loki's, who's the other parent?" Clint raised an eyebrow. "Obviously not in the picture if you've given him your name."

"Oh, hey now, let's not jump to any conclusions," Tony sat up quickly. He felt that this had been easier when it was just Pepper. "Both parents are involved, let me assure you."

"Then who's the mother, Tony?" Natasha raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms.

"Well, now I'm not exactly sure you could call me a mother, that just seems weird," Tony scrunched his face a little. "I feel the term mother is exclusive to women, of which I am not."

"Tony, stop joking," Steve sighed a little.

"I'm not," Tony looked completely honest, and that threw the three Avengers off.

"Tony bravely carried young Leo through times of great stress, and even some danger," Thor spoke up, and Tony was a little thankful. "I do not think that the boy could have asked for better parents than my brother and Tony."

"I, uh, can confirm this," Bruce spoke up before anyone else could say anything. "This isn't some cruel joke. Maybe a cruel spell, but, that's why I kept Tony on medical leave."

Steve's eyes widened, Clint's jaw dropped, and Natasha looked blank. "This isn't some elaborate scheme that you've all set up?" She asked, looking between the three in the room who were okay with this.

"I'm not sure I would go this elaborate," Tony hummed thoughtfully. "I'm all about the pay off, and if it takes a while, then it takes a while. I don't see the payoff to this one being that spectacular though." Tony looked up at the three faces, Thor's confused one, and Bruce's raised eyebrow. "In short, no, it's not a ruse."

"Sir, it would seem that Little Stark is awakening," JARVIS announced. All five of the Avengers looked over at Tony.

"What?" Tony didn't see why he should have his son called Little Stark. "Is Loki still out?"

"He is very sound asleep," JARVIS confirmed.

"Thanks, JARVIS," Tony pushed himself up. "Well, if you guys wanna see the little spitfire, come on." They all started to follow him closely. "Sometimes I'll let Loki sleep more if Leo decides to wake up early." He headed up to the second floor.

"You two sound way too domesticated," Clint muttered. Tony turned and put a finger to his lips as he opened the nursery door. There was a day bed next to Leo's crib, and Loki was sprawled across it in a peaceful sleep. JARVIS had blacked out the windows for the two. Tony could see Leo rustling around in the crib, just waking up. As he walked into the room the others hung back in the doorway, just in case Loki woke up they could make a quick getaway.

Tony grinned as he lowered the crib gate and picked up the little boy. Leo blinked wide eyes at him and stuck his fingers in his mouth. Tony tucked him against his hip and turned back looking at his teammates. Leo turned his eyes to the team and they settled on Bruce and Thor in familiarity.

"Sir," JARVIS started suddenly. "There is-" There was a loud crack from outside and the windows in the room shattered, flying about the room. Tony dropped to his knees, keeping back to the flying glass and wrapping himself around Leo who had started to cry. Loki dropped from the bed onto his knees in a defensive position and created a shield around himself and Tony and Leo, while the others jumped away from the open door.

Tony looked over his shoulder, squinting against the sudden light of the sun in the room and saw a figure standing a few feet away from them, stopped by Loki's shield. Loki stood up slowly and moved to stand in front of Tony and Leo, hands glowing. Tony squinted a little until he saw the figures grey eyes.

"I require the help of your mortal, Liesmirth," the man said, looking at Loki. "I would not like to take the child, but if it will encourage him to help, then I will take him too." Loki's hands started to glow brighter.

"Get. Out." Loki growled at the man. Tony kept his back to the man, trying to soothe the crying child, whispering softly in his ear and rubbing his back.

The man moved slightly as an arrow flew past his shoulder. He looked over having forgotten about the others. Clint had another arrow knocked and ready and Natasha had her guns pointed at the man. Thor was standing off to the side, and Steve was standing closest to Tony and Leo, the shield stopping him.

"I'd listen to him," Tony turned slightly to look at the man. "He's a very cranky man when he's woken up." And if Tony's voice was a little shaken with his son in his arms, no one would comment on it later.

The man smirked and took a step back. "Allow me to be more forthcoming than my predecessor." Tony glared at the man and Loki looked like he was barely containing his anger. "We require to know how the tesseract works, both scientifically and magically. It is not well known, but you are intimately familiar with both aspects, Mr Stark."

The sky outside started to darken, lightning arcing across the sky. The man snorted and bowed slightly before disappearing in a wisp of smoke. Leo started to hiccup and sniff, most of his tears gone, as he pressed his face into Tony's shirt.

Loki turned, dropping his shield and at Tony's side faster than the others could breathe. Tony started to relax his side against him before he stopped and hissed at the sudden pain his shoulder blade and back. Steve knelt down next to Tony and Loki's eyes snapped to him and Steve leaned back a little.

"You've got glass in your shoulder," Steve said to Tony. Tony sighed a little and handed Leo to Loki to distract him.

"Down boy," Tony groaned out. "I wasn't lying when I said he gets cranky when he's woken up like that." Bruce walked over and the two of them helped Tony stand up without moving his upper body too much.

"Does he often wake up to breaking glass?" Bruce questioned. Thor had moved closer to his brother and nephew, speaking in whispers to Loki.

"A few more times than you'd probably think."

* * *

 

Tony sat on the edge on the bed as Bruce finished putting some bandages on the deeper cuts when Loki walked in, Leo still in his arms, little fists in his shirt. "Calmed down a little," Tony smiled softly and rubbed a thumb across Leo's cheek.

"He's stopped hiccuping," Loki said.

"I think he was actually talking about you," Bruce said quietly as he grabbed the small dish of glass from the bed. "More then a couple of us had some flashbacks to two years ago."

Loki's eyes narrowed a little, then he seemed to sigh. Tony pushed himself up and walked over to Loki and Leo. Leo turned his head a little and reached out a hand to take one of Tony's fingers. Bruce looked over and saw the way that Loki was looking at Leo and Tony and blinked a little. The god looked content, something that he would have never associated with the man that had actively tried to kill them two years ago.

"Are you two going to have more kids?" Bruce asked casually as he started to clean up the med kit supplies. Tony's eyes widened a little and Loki blinked. "It's just an honest question. I know it hasn't been very long with Leo around, but you two seem to be competent parents."

"Wait until the media backlash comes," Tony murmured. "Why don't we go out, all of us, for dinner?" Tony suggested. "Before the story about Leo gets out. One last hurrah until I have to start teleporting everywhere with Loki."

"You think that a wise idea?" Loki asked him quietly.

"What could be safer than going out with the Avengers for dinner?" Tony looked up at him.

"I will not save you when shit hits the fan," Bruce mutters, but agrees to the dinner anyway.

* * *

 

Tony had hoped that if they all went into the lesser packed parts of Malibu then they wouldn't be seen and no one would call the press right away. So far, Tony was right. Sure, there were a few excited fans who approached them at the restaurant, but nothing they couldn't deal with.

Leo was sitting between Tony and Loki, with a spoon in his mouth that he refused to give back. With two tables pushed together they managed to fit everyone in a corner.

"This is good, I like this," Tony said as he gestured to the table. "We should do this more often. Why don't we do this more often?"

"We're never in the same place at the same time," Clint offered up. "Or we're all too tired from a battle to even think about going anywhere."

"Speaking of battles, it's gonna be hard finding the perfect babysitter," Bruce said, chewing on the end of his straw. "Not only one that can be called at all hours of the day, but also be generally okay with heroes and villains appearing at any time."

"I shall be taking that role," Loki spoke up. "I've enough of my image being tarnished by being connected to the Avengers in battle." He tried again to pull the spoon from Leo's mouth, failing. "I do believe that soon they shall start to call me an Avenger. That is something that I simply can not accept."

"He's normally such a sweet talker in bed," Tony smirked a little. Tony turned and rubbed one of Leo's cheeks while Loki had the spoon in his hand. Leo cooed and Loki was able to claim the utensil again. "Tricks of the trade, my friend."

"This is weird," Steve announced suddenly and they all glanced at him. "Watching Tony act responsibly." Tony glared as the others nodded, agreeing. "Especially watching him act as a dad."

"I can be responsible," Tony argued.

"Of course you can," Bruce nodded. "When you want to be. You just never want to be." Bruce smiled as Tony almost pouted.

"Rest assured, I can still be my normal self, and be a responsible dad." Tony looked at each Avenger. He suddenly stiffened when he felt something on his side. He looked over and saw that Leo was blowing bubbles with his mouth as the rest of his dinner was dripping down Tony's shirt. Loki wasn't even bothering to conceal the grin on his face.

Tony sighed and grabbed some napkins from the dispenser on the table and started cleaning it up before it hit the floor. "Next time I'll add extra clothes for Daddy on the list." He twisted his t-shirt a little to see the red stain from the juice that had apparently been added to the experimental foods list. Loki was already pulling out a bottle, his fingers glowing green as he heated it a little.

As Tony leaned over to wipe Leo's face a couple of flashes caught the attention of the whole table. They all turned to see a couple of people standing inside the restaurant with cameras. Professional looking cameras. Three things happened at the same time. Loki had grabbed Leo, turning him away from the cameras and out of sight, Tony stood up from the table to further block Loki and Leo from view, and the restaurant became a lot more crowded.

"Mr Stark! Tony!" "Who's baby is that?" "Is the child from a one night stand?" "How will this affect the Avengers?" "Is this why Iron Man hasn't been around?" Thor stood up then with Steve, blocking most of the pictures that were being taken, Bruce moved to the side and grabbed Leo's bag of stuff as Natasha grabbed the car seat. Clint stood behind Loki and Tony.

"Shall we escort you out?" Clint looked at the two men, and a quickly becoming upset baby. Leo was starting to whine in Loki's arms, wiggling around at all the loud talking and annoying flashes. Loki handed Leo to Tony, and grabbed Leo's blanket, holding it out in front of Leo to cover him from prying eyes. Clint and Bruce stood on either side of Loki and Tony as they started to move, Steve staying the front and Thor and Natasha bringing up the rear.

The restaurant staff that was able to get through the reporters and paparazzi were trying to push them back from the doors for the group, waving off Steve's adamant apologies. As they all squeezed out of the restaurant it became apparent by the people blocking in the various cars they had used to travel there, they needed a new way home.

There was a sudden feedback screech in the air and everyone winced at the sound, Loki immediately pressing the blanket over Leo's ears as he winced. All the shouting had stopped and everyone looked in the street to the source of the sound. It had stopped and they all looked at the several black cars, and a rather annoyed looking Agent Coulson standing there, the sounds of Leo crying being heard.

"I think that's enough," Coulson said calmly and the group moved towards the cars as other other agents blocked the media from following. "You've made a child cry, I think you're job is done." He walked over and got in the front seat of the car that Loki and Tony had claimed. As the door shut he glanced back to see Loki was gently rubbing Leo's back, whispering in his ear gently as Tony ran a hand through the mop of black hair.

"Maybe next time you let us pick a restaurant for you," Coulson said the parents, ignoring the looks they shot him.

* * *

 

The next morning Tony was down in the workshop as Pepper yelled at him over the phone. Loki was still sleeping with an arm around Leo, and the rest of the house was quiet. Pepper was in New York trying to calm the storm that had been created last night. Tony thought that it was entirely too early, and he was entirely too sober for this.

"What were you thinking last night Tony?" Pepper asked for the third time. "We were going to let the paper leak later this week as you made you first public appearance at the charity event." He heard Pepper sigh and Tony put his cheek down on his desk, wondering if she'd get mad if he fell asleep.

"I don't see that the big deal is, so they saw us a few days early," Tony grumbled out. "I'm more angry that they upset Leo last night. He didn't sleep all night-"

"You should have called someone before going out with all the Avengers." Pepper interrupted and Tony rubbed his temple a little. "It's not like you guys scream anonymity. And the big deal is that the press didn't know that you were even in a serious relationship!" A screen popped up and Tony raised his eyes to see pictures of magazine and newspaper covers appearing. "At the most they thought you were dating some woman."

"It's not my fault that Loki likes to gender bend when we go out in public. I could honestly care less sometimes what he looks like," Tony shrugged a little and started sorting through the pictures. He saw a couple of him cleaning Leo face, but most of them were of him walking with Loki holding up Leo's blanket. They were making them look disgustingly similar to Hollywood celebrity couples. "I pray they don't give us some awful name, like Toki, or Lony."

"Tony," Pepper growled a little. "Leo obviously looks like Loki, and it looks like you two are in a relationship, and there are papers out there stating that Leo is yours, and not Loki's. Do you know what this looks like?"

"I think it looks like I'm saying I don't give a rats ass what the press thinks," Tony said, sitting up, swiping all the pictures into the trash can on the screen. "I think it says that I Am in a relationship with Loki, and that they only thing they need to care about is not making our son upset again."

Pepper let out a breath and sighed deeply. "Why did you guys go out last night, Tony?"

"We were tired of being couped up inside the mansion," Tony said, pushing his chair out. "We had a bad day Pepper. It was a really bad day."

Pepper was silent for a second. "Alright, Tony. I'll handle what I can. Did Leo at least sleep last night?" She still loved the little boy like a nephew.

"It was a bad night," Tony sighed.

"Get some sleep Tony, I'll call you later." The line disconnected and Tony rubbed his face with his hands.

"A really bad day," he grumbled.

"It's going to continue," a voice whispered by his ear. Tony jumped back and saw the same grey eyed man from the day before standing behind him, arms behind his back.

"JARVIS!" Tony called out as he quickly slid back through the workshop. The man sedately followed, but the AI didn't answer. "JARVIS?"

"Your systems have been quieted, only temporarily." The mans voice was calm as he watched Tony. When the inventor reached out for one of his experiments the man flicked a wrist and a chain wrapped around Tony's wrist, pulling it back. "We are tired of waiting."

"You should learn a little patience," Tony grumbled as he tried to slip his hand through the chains, but the man just pulled tighter as he got closer. "How the hell did you get in here? You made quite the entrance yesterday."

"Yes, but I wanted your attention then," the man replied, a few feet away from Tony now. "Imagine what i can do when I don't want your attention." Tony growled and suddenly kicked at the mans chest. Tony stumbled back a little as did the man, the chain keeping them both up. Grey eyes suddenly pulled his arm back and whipped it forward, sending the chain out like a whip itself. Tony flew back with it and his back hit the wall behind his cars.

Tony shouted when one of his cars slid back, hitting his legs, trapping him against the wall. The chain whirled up and wrapped around Tony's other wrist and the man grabbed his chin, lifting his head up. "Think of how silent I was coming in just now. Now think, how many times could I have been there, watching you sleep? Watching that God sleep?" The man smirked. "Watching your son sleep."

Tony's blood felt like ice. "You're lying."

"How every night you put him to sleep in the middle of the crib, and when you pick him up at two in the morning you have to put him back in the middle, because he's moved up." Tony felt his limbs go weak. "And when he wakes in the morning, he's at the top of his crib, with his stuffed animals, green night lite going off with the sun."

"What do you want?" Tony asked, his voice quiet. He swore inside his mind, he threw and broke things in his mind. In his mind he was killing the man slowly for even thinking of looking at his son. But on the outside, the only thing he could do was protect his son but keeping the man away.

"You already know what," Grey eyes pulled the chains tighter around Tony's wrist. "Behave, and we'll return you to your twisted family, before we enslave you." He grinned as the two of them disappeared in wisps of smoke.

* * *

 

Loki scrunched his eyes when he felt the sun shine over him and into the room. "Sir, It is imperative that you wake up." He heard JARVIS's muffled voice from under the blanket he had pulled over his head. He blinked one eye opened and saw that Leo was still asleep, little fists gripping his shirt sleeve.

"Tony," Loki groaned a little. "You're being summoned."

"No, Mr Loki," JARVIS responded. "I'm speaking to you. It is regarding Mr Stark." Loki blinked and pushed the blanket off of his face. "I can no long locate him inside the building. He was speaking with Miss Potts earlier this morning."

"When was the last time he was here?" Loki sat up slightly, gently pulling Leo closer to his side.

"Approximately three hours ago," JARVIS told him, almost sounding sheepishly. "I regret to inform that my systems had been compromised and were down for that amount of time. The fail safe that Mr Stark installed finally restored my power."

Loki frowned. "Is Dr Banner awake?" He shifted Leo into his arms and the little boy rolled, trying to fall back to sleep in his Dad's arms.

"He is in the kitchen now." Loki nodded and stood up moved quickly.

Bruce looked up when he saw something move in his peripheral vision. He saw Loki standing there in his black silk pants and long sleeved white shirt, accessorized with a baby, and blinked. "Can you watch him? I have been informed that Tony is missing, and I do not have a good feeling about it."

Bruce blinked slowly and put down his mug of coffee, accepting Leo in his arms. "Um, sure? You gonna need any help?" He watched Loki start to walk away.

"I shall let you know," Loki disappeared from the room.

Bruce looked down at the little boy in his arms that looked up at him with sleepy eyes. Bruce ran a hand over his hair and his head dropped as he fell asleep again. "You got the right idea, kid," Bruce muttered and went to go sit on the couch.

Loki walked into the workshop as JARVIS opened the door for him. His eyes narrowed a little as he inspected the room. "Do you have the video footage from before he disappeared?" A screen popped up to the side and followed Loki as he slowly walked through the room.

Tony was sitting at his desk looking through some pictures. He stood up for a minute before leaning back and rubbing his face. Loki saw some smoke behind Tony before the feed cut out. There was some static and the picture popped up again, sans Tony.

Loki looked and saw some tools had been knocked off one of the tables, then he notices one of the cars pushed back and at a different angle than the others. Loki rolled his neck a little and let his magic spread through out the room. He picked up Tony's energies immediately, and there is a faint trail that follows it. He can see it move back towards the car and his eyes narrow. Tony is gone and Loki knows the smoky trail.

Loki feels an emotion of anger welling up in his stomach, one that he hadn't felt for almost three years.

* * *

 

Tony coughs and takes a few breaths, never really getting used to traveling in a manner that didn't involved some kind of vehicle, and yes that includes the Iron Man suit. He looks up and blinks seeing that he's in some kind of lab, desks littered with beakers, and tools, and there are three people staring at him. He doesn't get a chance to study them as a hand grabs his arm and starts to pull him, even though the chains are still around his wrist.

"So, are we going to play jump rope later on?" Tony quips are they across the room, (is that an examining table?) "This chain sure is long enough, but you'll have to give me a heads up if we're gonna play some double dutch."

"This is the man that Skir was unable to capture?" Tony blinks when he hears a woman's soft lilt. A tall blonde walks out of the shadows as Tony and Grey eyes stop. Tony thinks that maybe she would have been one of his one nights back in his playboy days. Her eyes are stunning blue almost purple color, and she wears heeled boots that put Pepper's shoes to shame. But she's dressed in what could pass as Asgardian armour.

"I'm a bit wily in nature," Tony responds. "Also, Punchy, really not so bright."

"No, he wasn't," the woman admits and starts to walk around him. Tony doesn't like it when women are taller than him. Unless it's Loki, then it's okay. "That's okay, he was replaceable, and it seems that has done the trick." She smiled at Grey eyes. "Well done, Sar." She touches his cheek and the brute of a man practically purrs under her touch.

Sar hands the chains over to the woman. "Lady Keer. Mortals are sentimental creatures." Tony rounds on the man and decks him with his two hands held together. Sar stumbled and Tony suddenly falls to his knees when the chains are yanked. He pushed down with a boot on his back and he growls when he sees the woman leaning down to look at him.

"That wasn't very polite Anthony," the woman chided.

"I tend to forget my manners when my family is threatened," Tony bit out. His eyes narrowed when her hand lifts up Tony's head by the chin. Her thumb reaches out and brushes over Tony's top lip, in a spot that makes Tony tense. Even Loki doesn't touch that spot with his fingers. There are three white marks that Tony deftly tries to ignore everyday when he looks in the mirror. The time when he was with Thanos.

"Hmm, this mental anguish is still fresh within you," she smiles and Tony wants to spit in her face. "I can work with this."

"Listen lady," Tony starts, letting his own anger take over. And hasn't that always gone over fabulously. "Your lackey got me here, and that's only because I did what I had too. But don't think that you've hit the jackpot, because I will not be a compliant little captive. Last time someone tried to do that, I made a cave their a grave."

"Yes, I know," Keer stood up, but the boot wasn't removed from Tony's back. He was finding it hard to keep himself up with his hands locked together as they were. "I know a lot about you Anthony Edward Stark," Tony watched her carefully. "And, if we have to, try not to worry about your son. I will care for him as if he were my own." Tony tried to lash out but he was just pushed into the ground, his arms caving under the pressure. "In fact, I might keep him as my own." She laughed as she walked back into the shadows of the hallway.

* * *

 

It didn't take very long to figure out what could calm down Loki. Leo.

No matter what Loki was doing, whether it was arguing with Steve about why he was waiting so long to take action, or going over the workshop with a fine tooth magical comb, if Leo was hungry, crabby, tired, or making a noise of any kind, Loki would stop what he was doing and go to him. He would stop in the middle of a sentence and walk away.

That's when the team realized something. Leo was the only reason that Loki hadn't left to tear apart the Earth looking for Tony. Even Clint gave the god a wide berth.

If Bruce had been joking about about having flashbacks to Loki's evil days, he wasn't joking now. They could see the flames behind his eyes. The Avengers actually pitied the poor fools that took Tony.

Loki was in their bedroom, the nursery still being repaired, having fed Leo, trying to get him to go down for a nap. Pepper was pushed down the hall, having made a hasty flight when she heard Tony was missing. No one else dared go talk to man.

She pushed the door open silently and heard Loki singing a hushed lullaby in another language. She slipped in and shut the door, blocking the others from hearing him sing. There was no guarantee that he wouldn't snap at her.

"Loki?" She approached when he trailed off from singing.

"I do so hope that you aren't here to tell me that everything will be alright," he said quietly, never looking away from Leo. "I am not one for false words of reassurance."

"No, I'm not here for that," she shook her head. Leo's eyes were closed and he was drifting off quickly into a restful slumber. "This is Tony we're talking about, things are never okay when Tony's involved." Loki's shoulder shook with a snort. "I'm just here to say that maybe taking a breather right now isn't such a bad idea. Just for a few minutes, or something." Loki placed Leo in the crib that had been moved into the bedroom.

"I need to find Tony," Loki said, just watching Leo.

"And that's what everyone is trying to help with," Pepper moved closer to him. "But planning on destroying the world to find him probably isn't the best method." She took his arm and guided him over to the bed to sit again. "While Tony doesn't have the same abilities as you, or any of the other Avengers, it doesn't make him defenseless. He may get into a lot of trouble, but he always comes back to us alive. Or, pregnant, once." Loki raised an eyebrow in amusement at her.

Loki let out a sigh as he listened to her words. "You're exhausting yourself. Good on ya for still being a great dad, but he's gonna start to notice when you just aren't yourself anymore. Babies have a knack for knowing when something wrong."

"I am unsure of what to do," Loki said quietly.

"And that's okay, seriously," Pepper nodded. "Right now, the only thing I want you to focus on is getting some sleep, and focusing on Leo, alright? We are gonna take things from here, and when you wake up we can join forces. Tony will be back home, letting Leo spit up milk on his shirts, in no time." She pat Loki's cheek a couple of time and smiled at him.

Loki let a small smile cross his lips and he nodded once. "Thank you, Lady Potts." She grinned at him and kissed his forehead.

"One day, you and Tony will take me into an early retirement," she called out as she left the room. When she closed the door she saw the expectant faces of the Avengers. "The storm is once again calm," she told them and headed back downstairs, the group following her.

"I may have an idea," Bruce said tentatively as they reached the living room. "I mean, for when we find Tony, because Loki won't want to leave Leo alone, and he won't bring him, that much is obvious."

"You know of someone who would willingly babysit?" Steve asked. "After all the press and pictures?"

Bruce rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah," he nodded. "I could call her now, but I'm not sure if she's asleep or not."

"It's eight thirty," Clint told him.

"Meaning it's almost midnight in New York," Bruce countered. "She lives in New York."

"Do we know her?" Natasha asked, suddenly very interested.

"No," Bruce answered quickly, shaking his head.

"Give her a call," Clint prompted. "If she's asleep she won't pick up and you can try again when it's earlier. I bet she'd pick up for you though," he smirked, sensing Bruce's hesitation.

Bruce sighed a little. "JARVIS, call Katherine." The others were very interested now that even JARVIS knew the number.

"Who is this Lady Katherine?" Thor smiled at Bruce as the phone rang. Bruce was regretting his decision suddenly.

The line picked up but there was some noise as it sounded like the phone was being fumbled on the ground. "Oh, hang on!" They heard a far away voice. "Oh shoot, eep!" Bruce blinked a little at the squeak and the others exchanged glances. "Hello? Bruce? Are you there?"

"Yeah, are you alright?" Bruce stared at the screen that JARVIS had pulled up, and quickly pushed her picture down to the corner, hidden from the others.

"I'm fine," she laughed a little. "I had just stepped out of the shower and I dropped the communicator. I thought you were in Malibu?"

"I am," Bruce confirmed. "I thought you would have been asleep."

"Oh, I probably would have, but I got called into the hospital for a couple of emergencies," she explained and Bruce could hear her getting dressed from the shower in the background. "I got home probably half an hour ago, so you actually called at a pretty good time. Although it leads me to wonder why you called." She was was naturally inquisitive, and Bruce liked that.

"You're not on hospital rotation are you?" His plan wouldn't work if she was.

"Oh no," he could picture her shaking her head. "Two of the Doctor's had other patients and I was their third call. I told them I wasn't ready for full rotation for another month yet. Why?"

"I need a favour, if possible."

"Bruce, you sound a little nervous," there was a smirk in her voice. "You know I'd help out if I can, just name it." Now the others were very interested in this Katherine.

"Wanna babysit?"

"You want to know if I'll babysit?" There was a pause. "You don't want me to babysit your lab do you? Because remember last time I-"

"Yeah, no, that's not it," he quickly cut off the story. "I mean an actually baby. Here in Malibu."

"Oh, Oh!" Her voice got a little closer to the communicator. She must have taken him off of speaker. "Do you want me to babysit your friends son?"

"Yeah, just for a bit, there's kind of a thing going on,...." He trailed off, not knowing what she would say.

"You know I can't pass up a chance to watch after an adorable child." Bruce let out a relieved sigh. "Is this the one that was in the papers? Because if I had been there and I saw that, they would all need new cameras," her tone suddenly became protectively fierce. "In the public eye or not, that's still a child and-"

"Katherine, you've started again," Bruce smirked. She let out a huff and took a breath.

"Of course I'll come- Wait." Something had finally dawned on here and they all heard the moment. "Oh my god, you want me to watch Iron Man's son." Bruce laughed a little.

"If you can get ready as soon as possible, packing a couple changes of clothing or something, and head up to the roof, there'll be someone there to pick you up in about ten minutes," Bruce told her.

"On the roof?" She questioned as she started moving.

"Yeah, I'll see you soon, okay?" She hummed in agreement and the line disconnected. He saw six faces watching him closely. "I've got to go and run some scans with JARVIS to try and find Tony." He said and quickly left the room.

* * *

 

Tony found himself in the lab with Sar, Keer, and one of the other men had seen when he arrived. They had removed the chains around his wrist, but replaced it with a shackle to one of his arms and a table. They were serious about keeping Tony in sight. "For the last time, I don't know Why it's attracted to the reactor."

"You're lying," Keer sighed, watching him. "You know why, you built it."

"It wasn't built with the sole purpose of holding the power," Tony argued. "It was built as an energy source to keep me alive." Tony had to tell them that right away before they had the thoughts of trying to pulling it out of his chest again.

"But it is an energy source," the third person said. It had appeared that he was the brains of this group. "It's obvious that it must channel different kinds of energy, or the tesseract would have ripped your frail body apart." He had a lot less patience than the others.

"I don't see why this helps you in any way now, you don't even have the tesseract," Tony grumbled. "And it's not like I can exactly tell you something that I don't even know how to do. It just happens. That the price one pays as a genius."

Tony felt a prickle on his neck and Keer smirked. "We're working on the getting part. Maybe you can help us with a rumor though." Keer leaned forward and brushed a finger along his jaw. "How was Thanos planning to use the power? We heard that he was going to use your God as his go between. Is that true?"

"You think that he told us what he was going to do?" Tony looked at her, shaking off her hand. "He was too busy trying to kill me, why would he bother telling me what his plans were." Tony snorted a little and crossed his arms over his chest. "Why don't you go fall through the abyss and find his prison and ask him. Good luck getting back."

Tony looked up when he saw the two missing men walk into the room, a bag in one of their hands. Tony's stomach dropped when he saw a bright blue glow.

"Let me see it," Keer stood up and took the bag. She reached in and pulled out Tony's old arc reactor and smiled. She tossed it to the scientist and he flipped down his glasses examining it. "Well, Mr Stark, I think you can show us what you were talking about now."

"You are way in over your head," Tony eyed the reactor then looked back at her. "You should Not have brought that back to earth. That thing is now powered to dangerous levels."

"And why exactly is that?" Sar questioned him this time.

"Because it still has residual power of palladium in it," Tony knew what palladium could do, but not with other-worldly power running through it. He found no reason to lie to them about it. "I'm not even sure what kind of reaction all that power could have. It needed to stay on Asgard."

"I supposed we can eliminate the palladium element," Keer said and gave the scientist a look. He blinked, almost looking sad before he placed it on the table in front of Tony. He suddenly brought a glowing fist down, destroying the arc reactor.

Tony's eyes widened and he looked up at Keer. "What the hell? Why did you-" They watched the blue power of the tesseract snake out of the broken reactor. It started to swirl around Tony and his own traitorous arc reactor seemed to pulse in response. Tony yelled as the power funneled into his chest and he slipped from the chair to the floor, his shackled wrist keeping him from collapsing completely.

"I added the human element," Keer knelt down in front of Tony. She brushed her fingers over his chest and Tony tensed. Her finger tips started to glow blue as she pulled on some of the power. Standing up she looked at her hand and smirked, suddenly throwing it out and an orb of power shot out, breaking the beakers on the table. Tony grunted as he felt the power tug in his chest.

"Thank you kindly, Anthony, for answering our questions. Now we just have to run a few experiments, and it's probably going to hurt you," she grinned as she closed her hand into a glowing fist.

* * *

 

Bruce was waiting outside for Katerine to get there, leaving the others inside to spy, with the exception of Thor who had suddenly had a summons to Asgard. "They sounded very familiar with each other," Pepper said first.

"She's obviously a Doctor," Steve added. "That could explain how they met, possibly."

"She was willing to fly all the way out to Malibu just because Bruce asked her too," Natasha pointed out.

"And he was acting pretty nervous," Clint was the first to get an evil smirk on his face. "Here she comes!" He pointed, spotting the headlights of the car first.

Bruce stepped up to open the door and smiled when he saw Katherine. She wore long purple shirt over a pair of jeans, and had kept her long strawberry blonde down. It was a few shades more orange than Pepper's, and she preferred the term 'ginger.'

"Hey," she grinned as he helped her out of the car and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Looking behind him she blinked whens he saw the mansion. "Wow, this is actually Tony Stark's house." Bruce had managed to pull the duffle bag from her hand, ever the gentleman.

"And it's every bit as crazy as you would think," Bruce told her. "Only, he's not in there." Katherine tilted her head a little as they headed inside. "That's why I called you. He's missing, and we want you to watch Leo when we find him. Loki will-"

"That's his partner right?" Katherine looked at Bruce. She never asked too many questions of Bruce about the other Avengers, knowing he would share what he wanted with her. She liked Bruce anyway, not the Avengers.

"Right," Bruce nodded. "Remember several months ago I was telling you about the really weird and awkward situation I found myself in?" Katherine nodded. "That was Tony being pregnant." Katherine stopped short and looked at Bruce. "I'm completely serious. Loki is the other father."

"I am never going to understand your life," she said, sighing playfully before following him again. "So, I'll be watching Leo so Loki can go with you and not have to worry about his son." Bruce smiled and nodded. "I'm glad you called," she smiled softly up at him.

"Me too," he leaned down and softly kissed her.

There were a couple cat calls and Bruce and Katherine jumped apart, startled. "I knew it," Clint singsonged.

"I'd like to apologize-" Steve started automatically until Katherine chuckled and waved her hand.

"I'd be disappointed if something didn't happen Mr Rogers." Steve smiled a little. "What I hear from Bruce I should be surprised that he was the only one waiting for me outside."

"They didn't know until they looked out the window that I had even left," Bruce muttered. He looked at the expectant group. "This is Dr Katherine Innogen, Kat, this is the group of misfits I talk about, and Pepper Potts."

"A pleasure to meet you all, and not just see you in the streets or on TV," Kat smiled, leaning forward to shake each of their hands.

"What kind of Doctor are you?" Pepper asked with actual interest. "Anywhere in Bruce's field?"

"Oh my no," Katherine shook her head. "I leave all that to Bruce, that's too much over my head. I'm an OBGYN."

"That explains so much why he thought of you right away," Natasha stated.

"Dr Banner," JARVIS interrupted. "The scans are almost complete, and I can report an 87% location of the energies of the arc reactor. Also, my motion sensors report that Little Stark is awakening."

"I'll take her up there," Pepper said, wrapping an arm around Katherine's arm. "You guys find Tony." Bruce nodded and Kat smiled at him as she was dragged off. "How long have you known Bruce?" Now Pepper get could all the facts before anyone else.

"We met several months ago, actually. Right after New Years," Kat told her. "We were both in India, volunteering, and I needed some help with a difficult birth. He was really the only Dr around, even though he told me time and again that he wasn't a medical doctor." She chuckled a little, remembering the incident. "Afterwards we went to find something to drink and just kept talking. I told him I was going to be heading back to London, and then New York after that. I was finishing up a fellowship in England."

"So, how long have you two been dating?" Pepper liked knowing dates, it was part of her job.

"That's something I think I'll Bruce tell her," Kat raised her eyebrows at her and Pepper sighed slightly.

They walked until Pepper stopped in front of a door and slowly pushed it open, glancing inside. Katherine looked around her and saw a man asleep on the bed, a crib sitting at the end of the bed. She could hear the rustling of a baby and knew by instinct that he was going to wake up and cry soon. Pepper walked in first and Kat made her way to the crib as Pepper checked on Loki.

She smiled and gently picked up the little boy who turned in her arms, obviously not ready to wake up fully. "I think that he might want a pacifier," Kat whispered to Pepper when she noticed Leo trying to suck on her shirt.

"I'll get one from the other room," Pepper told her. "I think his usually one is still downstairs." She left, leaving the door open slightly and Kat started to rock back and forth, humming to keep Leo as quiet as possible. She had seen many an exhausted parent, and none of them had to deal with the stuff that Loki and Tony had to.

Walking around the room with Leo she didn't see the movement on the bed, until turned around. She let out squeak at the green light in her face and she backed up against the wall. "Why are you holding my son?" Loki growled out and Katherine swallowed slowly. Maybe she should have asked Bruce more questions about Tony's personal life.

"He-" she cleared her throat a little. "He was waking up," she said quietly, but firmly. "Pepper wanted you to sleep some more." Loki's scowl softened slightly at the mention of Pepper's name. "She's just gone to-"

"Loki," Pepper hissed when she came in the room. Loki turned his head, but didn't move his glowing hand and step back from Katherine. "She's Bruce's friend, it's alright." Loki lowered his hand but turned back to study the woman.

"I do not remember giving her express permission to touch my son," he spoke to Pepper, but looked at Katherine. Katherine has handled hostile patients, and non patients before, but none of them were gods.

"We did," Pepper tells him and take his hand putting a pacifier in it. "We think we're close to finding Tony, and Bruce asked her to watch Leo so you could go with them." Loki's head snapped over to look at Pepper. "They're checking for final coordinates now."

Loki takes the shuffling Leo from Katherine and puts the pacifier in his mouth, watching him calm down. "I'm an OB physician," Kat tells Loki. "I take care of pregnant mothers, and their children after birth for a living." She felt like Loki wouldn't kill her if he started to know who she was.

"She threatened to break a few cameras," Pepper whispered to Loki. Loki looked at Katherine and she met his gaze.

"Know that if any harm comes to my son while we are gone, you had better be in pain also," Loki wasn't exactly threatening her. In a way he was saying that he was trusting her with Leo's life.

"I would protect any child with my life," Katherine responded confidently and Loki nodded.

There was a knock on the door and Steve stuck his head inside. "Hey, we, uh," he noticed Kat against the wall and how close Loki was standing to her. "Everything okay in here?"

"Perfectly fine," Kat flashed a trained smile and stepped away from the wall.

"Kay," Steve blinked a little then looked at Loki. "We found him." Loki nodded and put Leo back in the crib. The little boy clutched at his blanket, soundly asleep again. As Loki moved to leave the room his armour, minus the helmet, shimmered into existence. Pepper and Katherine followed the two men.

"You are one scary son of a bitch, you know that right?" Katherine directed at Loki. He turned his head and smirked at her.

"It is apparent I have not lost my touch then." They walked out the main door and Kat could see a quinjet, probably the one she arrived in, was waiting with Natasha and Clint in the cockpit. Pepper gave a quick squeeze to Loki's arm as he boarded with Steve. Kat jogged over to Bruce and gave him a quick hug.

"Be careful, I know what you guys get up to," She told him pressing a quick kiss to his lips. "And take care of the big guy." She gave him a second kiss.

"I don't think you need to tell me to take care of him," Bruce told her.

"I know, I was talking to the Other Guy." She smirked and pushed him towards the quinjet with the others. "I don't wanna have another talk with him!" She called over the sound of the engines.

The back closed and Bruce took a seat as they took off. Even Loki was watching him when he looked back. "I think this can wait until we get back."

"Oh yes," Loki agreed. "I know for a fact that Tony would throw a fit if he was not here to know all about your lady love." Even Steve couldn't keep his laughter in.

* * *

 

"Not very often that you find the bad guys are holed up in the desert," Clint commented as they walked through the halls of the underground building. There was a small shack hidden amongst some rocks that they would have missed if not for JARVIS's readouts.

"It's smart actually," Bruce commented through the comm, opting to stay in the quinjet. Small spaces and the Hulk didn't spell good things. "If someone managed to escape they'd be wandering the desert for a while, either getting heatstroke, or freezing from the cold nights."

"It gives me pleasure to know that I shall rain wrath upon enemies that have a little bit of sense, then," Loki said tightly. They were following his own personal tracking spell, a little green ball of light floating through the halls. Loki stopped suddenly, holding an arm out as the light turned the corner and was quickly hit with a blast of blue magic.

"I think we're close," Clint muttered.

"I wondered how long it would take until you tracked him down," a woman's voice called out.

"Were you counting down the minutes until your death?" Loki called back.

"I'd rather talk face to face," she responded.

"I'm afraid that I'd rather not step into a trap. Your forfeit that right a few seconds ago."

"You could call her a mewling quim," Natasha muttered to Loki and he snorted once.

"Guys, I'm picking up two high energy signatures," Bruce told them. "I think one of them is whoever your talking to, and the other might be Tony's reactor."

"Where is Tony's reading?" Steve asked.

"In one of the rooms down the hall to your left. You're going to need to distract her to slip by," Bruce said. "He's real close."

Loki stepped out from around the corner and held up a hand catching the blue projectile. "I told you this was the reason I did not want to face you," he threw the power into the wall. He noted the woman and thought he vaguely recognized her. Her hands were glowing with blue energy. "So you would be the reason why my brother was called back to Asgard."

"Yes, I imagine they are searching frantically for information about where the relic went," she smirked.

"I imagine that they have already caught the ones you sent to steal it," Loki answered.

"It is nothing I shall mourn," She replied, looking at her fingernails. "They knew the risks that came with stealing from Odin."

"You apparently do not understand the consequences of stealing from me." She narrowed her eyes and flung a couple more spells at him. He raised a shield quickly but the second spell broke it. Steve held his shield up and a third spell bounced off of it as Natasha and Clint ran down the hall the other way.

"Be on your toes, Captain," Loki warned as he worked his own magic.

There weren't many doors down the hall so they opened every door they came to. The fourth door on Clint opened it and quickly motioned Tasha over. Tony was on the ground with his back against the wall, one knee pulled up and his head was resting on it. He was breathing fast and seemed to be in pain.

"Tony?" Tony's head snapped up at Clint's voice.

"About damn time," Tony grunted out, his fist clenching as his body tensed. "I can tell you haven't killed her yet, though." He let Tasha and Clint help him out. He suddenly cried out and there was a bright flash of blue and green out in the hall. "We have to get out of here," Tony told them breathlessly.

"If we can sneak by that psycho out there again." Tasha said, poking her head out quickly.

"I don't care if she sees, the further away I am, the weaker she gets," Tony told them. His chest sent out a glow and he tensed again. "She's using the power in my reactor, and the closer I am to her to more power she has."

"Bruce, is there any other way out than where we came in?" Tasha pressed a finger to the comm.

"Sure, if you wanna get lost for a couple days," Bruce replied. "If you move quickly maybe she'll be too distracted by Loki and Steve."

"Let's move," Clint said. Tony was moving his feet first, trying not to stumble and they moved quickly. A hallway was not the best place to have a battle, and they all knew it.

As Clint and Tasha pulled Tony around the corner he suddenly screamed and his knees gave out. The reactor was glowing brightly. "My dear Anthony, where do you think you're going?" Loki was slammed into the wall by them, and Steve was suddenly pushed into Loki. "I wasn't done experimenting with you, and how would I access your powers if you aren't nearby?"

Keer turned the corner and Clint and Tasha stood there, bow and guns ready. She merely swept her hand and they flew back down the hall. Keer bent her knees down and she ran her finger across Tony's shoulder. He groaned in pain as she pulled more power from him.

"Get, your hands, off," Loki growled behind Keer. Steve had even backed away from Loki, around the corner as Clint and Tasha did the same on the opposite side of the hall. They knew the look Loki was giving her.

"If you kill her," Tony choked out on the ground, "I'll have more of your kids." As long as Tony was still joking, he was fine. "Just block out my screams, you're good at that."

"TMI Tony!" Clint yelled from down the hall.

Loki raised a hand slowly as Keer stood up to face him, standing over Tony. They both moved at once. Keer threw out a stream of blue fire as Loki launched several green daggers. One of the daggers caught her shoulder and the fire stopped. The flame burned the ground around Loki, licking at the edges of his jacket, but not the man himself. She growled and pulled on more power, Tony's chest moving up as he screamed out. Loki seemed to have blocked out everything and was seeing red as he looked at Keer. She started to spin the power in front of her, and Loki watched it separate into different spells with disinterest.

"You are merely a god, nothing compared to this ancient power,' she growled out as the spells shot out to surround Loki.

"What's going on down there?" Bruce's voice started rise as he watched the cam that was on Steve's helmet. "Why isn't he doing anything?"

"I have a bad feeling about this," Steve muttered.

Loki's hands were glowing green, but Keer didn't notice the golden shine moving up his hands to his arms. She was setting her trap, too involved to think that it wasn't a good sign that Loki was just letting her. She didn't notice his clothes and hair moving gently by an unfelt breeze, or his green eyes start to glow. She did notice when the whites of his eyes started to turn gold.

"You would be right," Loki's voice was low. Deadly. "If you knew what you were doing with it."

"Die," Keer hissed and she threw her hand out at Loki. He was suddenly encased in a blue shield as tiny explosions were set off, bringing the ceiling down on him. Dust and a blue glow covered the the inside as more explosions went off.

Keer started to laugh as the Avengers stood frozen. She had power that they were sure only Loki had enough power to stop. As the dust cleared, the shield went down and they saw that there was also a hole in the floor. The edges were all scorched in black and blue flames burned underneath. Tony was gasping for air on the floor.

Steve was the first to snap out of it. He looked at Keer and threw his shield at her. She put up a hand and it ricocheted back at him, catching him in the shoulder giving him a deep gash. She turned when Clint shot an arrow at her and she redirected it at the bullets that Tasha had fired.

Tony let out a choking laugh on the floor and Keer looked down at him. "I am so going to enjoy this," he wheezed out. "I also think I'll be going through a very awkward pregnancy again." She frowned at him in confusion until she was grabbed by the back of the neck from behind and lifted up.

"I am a master of illusion," Loki hissed in her ear. He turned her around, holding her neck still so now she could see him. "I imagine that when your power source is feeding his own energy to me, your powers aren't as strong as you once thought."

"I have a more direct connection with the powers," she hissed out, taking small breaths as was allowed. "You can't tap into the tesseracts powers."

"I don't need them," Loki smirked at her and she felt a knit inside her chest at the look. "I have more direct connection with the man himself. Did you foolishly think that you could just take him? That I would allow you to threaten me, and my son, and let you get away with it?" He laughed and the four people that were on his side got shivers.

"You've become soft, Loki Laufeyson," she hissed, gasping when Loki tightened his grip at the name. "You fight at their side like a summoned dog. Once you would have commanded Asgard and Midgard both! You would have destroyed Jotunheim. And now you lay down like a pet."

"Do not think me incapable of such fetes," Loki tilted his head at her. "I could still do all that, and more. My powers are more than they've ever been." He pressed a thumb into the hollow of her throat and she clawed at his hand, gasping for breath. "Mark my words, I will bring about Ragnarok, and when I do I have no doubt that I shall find it glorious. But for now, I find such matters of a trivial nature, much like your life."

He dropped her on the ground and she gasped for breath, holding onto her neck. Loki then knelt down and looked at her. He placed a two glowing fingers on her head and smirked. Much of the golden glow had started to disappear as he shifted to help Tony up, taking most of his weight. Steve scrambled forward and put Tony's other arm over his shoulders as they started to walk towards Clint and Tasha.

"What the hell was that?" Clint looked at Loki with wide eyes, then followed behind as he kept walking. "I mean, what did-" They three able bodied Avengers froze when they heard Keer's keening cries and desperate screams fill the halls.

"She will merely burn from the inside with the same living flames that she tried to kill me with," Loki said rather calmly. "We should get going, I'm sure that Tony would like to rest."

"You have no idea," Tony murmured. "I'm going to pretend that this whole thing was a bad dream, and possibly have a few drinks."

"Hmm," Loki hummed a little as they walked out of the shack. As the door closed they could no longer hear Keer's screams. "You should ask Dr Banner about a certain Katherine Innogen," he commented as they walked onto the quinjet. Bruce was looking a littlegreen but came over to check on Tony's vitals. "Dr Banner," he started as he sat next to Tony, Clint and Tasha quickly moving to the cockpit. "I wonder if you are aware of what the Lady Katherine's name means?"

"I don't put much stock into the meanings of names," Bruce commented lightly. The door closed behind Steve as he sat across from Loki and Tony. He was starting to wish that he could get drunk again.

"I think you shall find this most intriguing then," Loki crossed his knees.

"Don't worry, after every murderous thought he starts to get a little giddy," Tony commented for everyone to hear. "He's gotten rid of so much hate and revenge that there's literally nothing left but happy emotions. You get used to it after a few months."

"Innogen means 'maiden', fittingly enough," Loki ignored Tony's words. "there are debates about the name Katherine though. My two favourite interpretations are from your Midgardian Greeks, meaning either 'torture' or 'pure'."

"That's quite a difference in meaning," Tasha commented.

"Yes, it is, which is why it amuses me so." Loki smirked a little. "I wonder which one she embodies more?"

"For three days out of the month, the first one," Bruce commented and Clint swallowed a laugh. He moved back from Tony after being satisfied that Tony wasn't going to keel over on them until they got back to Malibu. Tony slumped against Loki's side and smiled a little, his eyes sliding shut. Loki wrapped an arm around Tony, keeping his close.

"What does my name mean?" Tony asked.

"That is rather interesting actually," Loki continued easily. It seemed that like Leo, Tony was a natural calming agent for Loki. "Your name has no actual meaning, except for one, and it is incorrect. There are claims that is derived from the Greek word meaning 'flower.' And you are anything but a flower." Tony snorted loudly. "Your last name also has no meaning. You are a blank slate to mold Anthony Stark."

"What about your name, Loki?" Bruce asked, sitting next to Steve.

Loki let out a chuckle and looked over at the two men as he ran his hand through Tony's hair. "Odinson simply means that I am the son of Odin, the Allfather. It is how every son is named, and it is why Leo is Lokison in Asgard. It is why my daughter's name is Lokidottir. As for Loki," he suddenly grinned. "Is is Scandinavian in nature, for the most part, and is known as Trickster God."

"You're the meaning of your own name?" Steve questioned. Loki nodded once.

"I am far older than this realm of yours. We did not take our names from what your ancients came up with, we gave them the names of which to worship us by." Loki leaned his head back a little, pulling Tony's head into his lap as the man fell asleep. "Then as the humans discovered other gods, and other false deities to proclaim war in the name of, we stopped coming to Midgard."

"It is entirely too early for deep conversations like this," Clint commented. "We can about this after we get back to the mansion, and I've had some proper sleep."

The rest of the ride back to Malibu was a lot less scary now that Loki was actually in a good mood. When they got back to the mansion Loki instantly took Tony up the bedroom to check on him himself, in his own way and Bruce said he would check on Leo when they noticed that he wasn't in the crib. No need to get Loki excited again.

Bruce walked into the living room and blinked. He saw Kat asleep on her side, legs curled up slightly, one arm around Leo that as asleep next to her with his face against her shirt, and some pillows ont he other side to prevent him from rolling away too far.

"JARVIS?" Bruce asked quietly.

"I've already recorded it," the AI responded quietly.

Bruce grabbed a pillow from the couch and put it under Kat's head. Looking outside he saw there were still a couple of hours until the sun rose. He flopped down on the couch and stretched out, falling asleep almost immediately.

* * *

 

Tony sniffed a little as he turned in the bed. He could see the sun was up outside and knew that he had at least gotten a couple hours of sleep. He wasn't sure what had woken him, but it was going to take some time to get back to sleep. He glanced over at the crib and saw someone with red hair leaning over it, putting Leo back in it. Tony saw that Loki was asleep and figured Pepper must have come early to take care of Leo.

Tony slipped out of the bed, ignoring the aches of his body and walked over. He wrapped his arms around Pepper's waist from behind. It wasn't Pepper.

The woman shrieked and jumped causing both her and Tony to lose their balance. Leo started to bur his lips and wave his hands and feet as they fell to their sides with solid thuds as Loki quickly jumped from the bed.

"You're not Pepper!" Tony exclaimed as he groaned a little and flipped on his back, letting go of her.

"What is it with you and your partner cornering me?" The woman sat up, breathing a little fast.

"What, what happened?" Bruce was the first to slide into the room, having heard the shriek.

"That's not Pepper!" Tony pointed from the floor. Loki had flopped back down onto the bed face first.

"I'm going back to sleep," he muttered into the pillow.

"No, that's Katherine," Bruce said. He walked in and helped Kat up and they both helped Tony up, setting him back on the bed.

"Although I am flattered that you think I look as good as Miss Potts," Kat smirked a little.

"Oh, you," Tony pointed. "You I would have called back many years ago." Bruce moved a bit closer instinctively and Tony's eyes widened a little. "Bruce! Are you dating?"

"Actually, he's just a front," Kat pointed at Bruce and winked at Tony. "I'm more attracted to the taller guy that never wears a shirt. He's got these amazing muscles that-" She giggled when Bruce wrapped a hand around her mouth.

"I'm going to kick you all out," Loki said into his pillow.

"He's cranky when he wakes up," Tony replied. "I think I covered this the other day."

"We'll leave," Bruce said and started to drag Kat away. "She was just returning Leo, who will be satisfied for the next couple of hours."

"Then I'm tracking you down," Tony pointed at Katherine as Loki's arm snaked around his waist. "We have much to talk about."

"No, three ways," Bruce growled as they left the room.

"Aw, but Brucey," Tony laughed when he heard Katherine whine playfully as they walked away.

"She seems nice," Tony said when he rolled into Loki's side. "She was taking care of Leo?" Loki nodded once into the pillow. "Did you threaten her before you left?" Another nod. Tony would have been worried if he hadn't of threatened her. "Do you want me to shut up?"

"Oh so very much." Tony smirked and leaned back a little. He pressed a kiss to the side of Loki's head then relaxed in the bed.

* * *

 

Bruce knew it was coming, he tried to prepare for it. And by prepare he dragged Katherine down to the workshop that Tony said he could use. No one else could get in if they even figured out where he was. Except for Tony.

He waved at Bruce form the door before opening it. Katherine watched from the seat next to Bruce as he worked on one of his experiments. "Here's my new favourite person, and science boyfriend!"

"Well, you must be feeling better if Loki's let you out of his sight," Bruce commented as he took his glasses off.

"I let him sleep and spent several wonderful hours with my son," Tony grinned. "I even had fun changing his diapers. That part will wear off in a couple hours. Then Loki woke up and told me that I could go have fun." Tony pulled up a chair across from the couple.

"Did you know that your arc reactor is giving off crazy amounts of energy?" Bruce asked, trying to steer him off course.

"Yup, it's the tesseract, old news," he waved it off. "I'm more interested in the crazy amounts of energy you two are throwing off." Tony pointed between Bruce and Katherine. "How long have you been hiding her from me, Bruce? From me! I'm hurt, right here." He patted his arc reactor.

"Doesn't it always hurt there?" Katherine raised an eyebrow at him.

Tony stared at her for a second. "Well, thank god your smart. I'd be disappointed in Bruce if he picked anyone with a low IQ."

"I'm an OBGYN," she told him. "I'm the person he was consulting while your were pregnant. I thought there was another woman," she laughed a little and Bruce actually blushed.

"We haven't been actually dating for very long," Bruce murmured. "And I tried to keep her a secret from you guys as long as I could."

"What happened?" Tony grinned.

"You're stupid ass had to get kidnapped," Bruce shot back. "She was the only one I trusted to come and watch Leo."

"I understand why Bruce wanted to hide me," Katherine looked at Tony. "When your partner woke up and saw me with Leo he almost killed me. Then you saw me with Leo and thought I was someone else. In less than 24 hours I was assaulted by two Avengers."

"Oh, we don't call Loki an Avenger," Tony corrected. "He lets us know every chance he gets that he only helps because he doesn't want to see Midgard destroyed just yet." Tony nodded a little and twirled in the chair. "He says that he'll destroy the world himself when it's time. But I can't help but notice that you two are avoiding my questions about your love life."

"Really? Hadn't crossed my mind," Bruce looked back at the screen in front of him with some equations. Katherine chuckled a little and rested her head in her hands.

"Now that-" He stopped when the house shook slightly and there was a crack of thunder. "Thor's back. I wondered when he'd be here."

Katherine looked between Bruce and Tony. "Loki's older brother Thor? He's actually here?"

"Someone is getting a little starstruck," Tony smirked as he stood up.

"I'll be honest, I haven't had much sleep and this all seems like it's going to be some dream," Kathering smiled a little. "I mean, I'm in Tony Stark's house, taking care of the child of you and Loki, chatting with Pepper Potts, and meeting the rest of the Avengers."

"Remind me to tell you how we met," Bruce said to Tony as they got up to follow Tony to greet Thor.

Thor was in the kitchen holding onto Leo as Loki lounged on the couch, holding a bottle up, waiting for Thor to notice it. "Oh, they certainly act like brothers," Katherine whispered to Tony and Bruce. Loki shot her a look as they got closer, letting her knowing he heard her.

"Friends!" Thor called out, turning and holding Leo in one of his arms when he saw them walk up. Katherine was a little hidden behind the taller Bruce, so Thor hadn't noticed her yet. "I come bringing grave news from Asgard. My nephew even makes it hard for me to smile with such news wearing on me."

"Yeah?" Tony asked, eyebrows raised. "It couldn't be the fact that the tesseract is missing, and it came back to bite me in the ass? Just like I requested it not too when I gave Odin my old arc reactor. It couldn't be that news could it?" Loki had snorted from the couch, bottle still up in the air. Leo had noticed it from Thor's arm and was now making grabby hands for it.

Thor's eyes had widened a little. "Have you found the tesseract?"

Tony tapped his chest. "Yup." Leo let out a whine.

"Oh for pity's sake," Katherine stepped out from the two men and walked over taking Leo from Thor and the bottle from Loki. Leo eagerly grabbed the bottle and settled into her arms. Bruce snorted.

"Forgive my manners," Thor bowed a little at the waist. "I did not know you were there."

"That's Katherine," Bruce supplied.

"Ah, Lady Kathereine," Thor's eyes lit up in recognition. "You have been watching over my valiant nephew!" Katherine bit her lip a little and nodded. "When you are not encumbered I shall welcome you to the fold of family here on Midgard."

"You won't want to let go of that baby," Loki said sitting up from the couch.

"So, Thor," Tony brought the attention back to the subject. "What are we going to do about this little breech in security? Because I for one do not like being the place holder for this power. It hurts."

"The Norns themselves are preparing a place for the tesseract." Thor informed him. He then reached into a pouch that hung on his belt and pulled out a familiar looking black box. "This shall be the vessel this time. It can only be opened by those of the House of Odin. it will even be hidden from Odin's eyes, so that none but the Norns will known where it is hidden."

Tony seem to mull it over for a second. "Yeah, I can agree to that." Thor opened the box and held it out towards Tony. Loki had gotten up from the couch to come and stand behind Tony. Tony took a breath and closed his eyes. He seemed to be meditating standing up. His arc reactor started to glow and a flowing blue light quickly swept from his chest into the little black box. Thor closed the box and Tony swayed on his feet a little before dropping back into Loki's waiting arms.

"You'd think by becoming a demi-god, this kind of stuff would be easier," Tony muttered.

"What of the person who had been in possession of the tesseract?" Thor questioned, placing the box back in the pouch. "We caught the thieves."

"She is gone," Loki said simply. Katherine noticed how Bruce looked anywhere but at Loki. "There will be no need to worry about her any longer.

Thor eyed his brother. "I do not think I wish to know the details. Just know that I am glad to see that you are alright," Thor smiled at Tony.

"Thanks big guy," Tony smirked a little. "Hey, stay for dinner, we're gonna question Bruce and his girlfriend." Bruce groaned.

* * *

 

  
"You didn't know who I was," Bruce pointed a fork at Katherine.

"And I think that was a good thing in the long run," Katherine argued back. "It meant that I wasn't about to ask for your autograph, or be afraid." Steve Clint and Tasha watched Bruce carefully for his reaction.

Bruce sighed a little and rolled his eyes. "You still didn't know who I was after I told you my full name." He seemed to ignore the afraid comment, and now the three were wondering how serious Bruce actually was with this girl. Thor, Tony and Loki had a pretty good idea.

"I'm a baby doctor," Katherine laughed. "I don't pay attention to every person who does an experiment on themselves. Now maybe if you would have come to my clinic at the time pregnant because of the it, then I would have known your name."

"You have to tell us about the time you found out he was an Avenger," Tasha told her. "I wanna hear how that went."

"No!" Bruce yelled at the same time Katherine said, "Okay!" Bruce groaned.

_Kat looked in the mirror one more time, messing with her hair and sighed. "It's just coffee, you silly girl. You're over dressed." She groaned then walked out of the bathroom and back into the cafe proper. She sat down at one of the tables and pulled out a tablet to check her emails._

_She glanced outside and blinked when she saw some people running by. There was a large crack and the ground started to shake a little. Some people ran inside, and a minute later Katherine saw several Doom bots crashing along the street. Her eyes widened as she got up from the table._

_A couple more Doom bots appeared on the streets as more people went running by. The glass of the windows shattered when the bots started firing up and past the cafe. She covered his head and backed up a little. Katherine looked out and saw a woman running holding onto her young daughter. She tripped over some debris from a couple of destroyed bots as a few more set their sights on her._

_Without thinking Katherine hopped through the window and grabbed the woman's arm, pulling them both up quickly. "Get inside, hurry," she said as she pushed them towards the cafe. Some of the men inside quickly grabbed them and pulled them in. Katherine grabbed her bag and hit one of the bots that had gotten too close, but it didn't phase it in the slightest. She ducked when a laser suddenly hit the bots around her and she ducked._

_"It's not so safe on the streets," she looked up and saw a red and gold suit above her. She nodded and ran back inside the building._ ("Hey, I remember that!" Tony exclaimed. "That was right before we went to Italy." There were some groans.)

_It seemed that the fight had been winding down and some of the Avengers had made their appearance on the street, but she blinked when she saw Iron Man land by the Hulk. Tony's visor flipped up and he pat Jolly Green's arm a couple of times before holding out a pair of pants. That when she saw Bruce as he calmed down and took the pants from Tony._

"That's how you knew?" Bruce looked at her. "I didn't know this part of the story."

"And for good reason, now shush, here comes the best part." She smiled. "He had called me about fifteen minutes later to reschedule at a different cafe. I had told him that was fine, because I was running late, and had caught on the news that it might not be safe down there anyway."

_Having a excuse to change into something a little more casual she walked in and saw Bruce had gotten there first. She smiled and walked over and she hugged him quickly. "Sorry about having to reschedule," he shrugged a little, a nervous smile on his face._

_"Kind of hard to control when some robots try to destroy the street your cafe is on," she chuckled a little. She frowned a little and took one of his hands gently. "That looks like a nasty little burn, are you okay?"_

_"Hm? Oh yeah, just a lab accident," he tried to cover it up._

_"Sure you didn't get it when you punched some Doom bots?" Bruce looked at her, eyes slightly wide. "I mean, they are robots, and big muscled hands or not, that's still gotta burn." She let him pull his hand away but she put a hand on his arm._

_"Well, yeah, okay, it might have happened to be a Doom bot." He watched her carefully. "And I can't help but notice that you're not running away."_

_"Well, no," she admitted, shrugging a little. "I mean, this doesn't doesn't exactly change who you are, and I still want-" she stopped when Bruce suddenly learned forward and kissed her softly and quickly. Her eyes were a little wide and she blinked. "I want a few more of those in the future."_

"Bruce made the first move?" Tony looked a little shocked.

"You ran out to help someone, even though you could have gotten hurt?" Steve asked, blinking a little.

"Bleeding heart," Katherine shrugged a little. Bruce had pulled her chair a little closer.

"Have you met the Other Guy then?" Clint asked cautiously, not sure who's reaction he'd be more afraid of.

"Only once," Katherine confirmed.

"I wanted to test out the new cell while Tony was in Italy," Bruce told them. "Just to make sure that everything held up, even the door. JARVIS let her in and told her where I was, not like it was the first time she'd been to my lab."

"Obviously not the first time she'd been to the Tower," Tony commented, a little bitter that he didn't know this was happening under his nose.

"Things must have gone well, she's still around," Tasha commented.

"Define, well," Bruce said, wincing slightly.

_"Bruce?" Katherine walked into the lab and looked around. "Hey, JARVIS told me that you were- oh." She stopped when she saw the cell in the corner. The door was buckling under the fists of the Hulk._

_"Dr Innogen, I would recommend vacating-" JARVIS's voice was cut off when the metal door went flying into the cement wall, sticking there. The Hulk tried to push through the opening but couldn't break the glass around the frame. He started to bash into it and Katherine bit her cheek a little._

_She jogged over and stood to the side. "Bruce? Can you hear me?" Nothing changed and she took a deep breath before reaching out a hand and placing is on the big green arm trying to tear the wall of the cell away. "Hey, can you hear me?" She jumped a little, but didn't pull away her hand, when he moved inside suddenly, looking at her. He looked at her and Katherine smiled tentatively at him._

_"I uh, I came here to see if you wanted to grab a pizza, or something," she started kind of nervously. "I imagine that you'll need a change of clothes first. And we'll probably need a whole ton of pizzas if you insist on going out like that."_

Tony started to laugh, almost tipping back in his chair. Even Loki smirked a little. "I like you, I like her," Tony looked at Bruce.

"You're braver than some of us," Clint said. "A few people still keep their distance when Bruce changes." He glanced over to catch Loki's glare.

"When there is a Clint sized shape in the floor, that is when I shall deign to talk to you about this subject," Loki growled out.

"I'm finding it a little hard to take you seriously when there is a child asleep on your stomach," Clint shrugged a little. "Just saying."

"What's not to like? He's just a little green under the gills, but he's got Hercules beat in the muscles department," she chuckled a little when Bruce hung his head a little. "I didn't have the heart tell him that if they were two different people, I'd probably dump him for his alter ego."

Tony snorted, but noted the way Bruce's eyes lit up when she referred to the Hulk as a person. Yeah, maybe this was the girl for Bruce, his 'Loki'. Tony glanced over at Loki and the god raised an eyebrow at him, a hand on Leo's back as he had indeed fallen asleep on Loki's stomach as he was leaning back. Tony leaned back a little and leaned against Loki's arm as Katherine kept telling stories Bruce didn't want her too.

* * *

 

There was a knock at Katherine's apartment door as she stood in the kitchen, making some food. Glancing at the clock she thought that it was too early for Bruce to be here. "Hang on!" She yelled across the room and pulled the pot from the burner, turning it off. She tightened her pony tail and ran over still in her sweats, tank top and socks.

"Bruce, you're early!" She smiled and he leaned down to kiss her.

"I was kind of forced to come early." He shook his head a little when Tony peeked his head out from around the corner.

"Hey there, beautiful," Tony grinned and Katherine raised an eyebrow.

"I thought we explained this to him," Kat looked at Bruce. "There were going to be no orgies, no three ways, no partner swapping, no-" Bruce put a finger up to her mouth.

"Oh, I'll fix that one day," Tony vowed. "No, I made Bruce come early because I wanted to asked a favor." She could see that Tony actually looked a little nervous now. "I know it's only been about three months since you met us all, but uh," Tony seemed to shuffle his foot a little.

"He wants you to be Leo's personal doctor," Bruce said for him, not wanting to watch him flounder anymore.

"And my own," Tony mumbled. Kat blinked a little. "I may or may not have promised to Loki when he saved me that I would have more of his kids." He looked up at her, same sparkle in his eyes as before. "And then maybe we could try and negotiate a few bed deals-"

"To win your argument you tell me that it would be easier this way, because then you'd know exactly who to call when you start freaking out about when he gets sick," Kat finished for Tony.

"Oh, and you'd get to be around Bruce a lot more often." Tony grinned a little. "There's no way that my son's doctor would living a half an hour away when we're in New York. There's this nice Med Bay in the Tower, and the new mansion being built. And I'm building some condos in Malibu for the rest of the Avengers too, so you could stay there-"

"Yes, Tony," she interrupted him and he blinked a little. "I'll do it." Tony suddenly hugged her and her eyes widened slightly before hugging him back. His hand started to travel down her back and it was Bruce that whacked his arm.

"Okay, well, I'm off, gotta tell the the babe and kid," Tony grinned and gave a little salute before leaving the apartment, closing the door.

Bruce leaned over and kissed her softly. "Now, how's that dinner coming?"

"Better now that you're here to help me finish it," she smiled and slipped his jacket off, pulling him into the kitchen. Now how were they going to keep Tony awayfrom them when she moved into the building?


End file.
